


Si Je Dois Rester La Même

by skivvery



Category: Orphan Black (TV), X Company (TV)
Genre: Crossover WWII AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 05:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5816053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skivvery/pseuds/skivvery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War sets a fog on memory, details fade amidst smoke and rubble. Sergeant Aurora Luft knows this. But the trick is that there is more to war than that; sometimes there is hope. Sometimes, hope has a name. And, sometimes, that name is to be found on the other side of the battlefield.<br/>Of course, in war, hope can also be doomed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Si Je Dois Rester La Même

**Author's Note:**

> A teacher once told us in class that if we still didn't understand what was going on in Mrs Dalloway, we should just follow through because it would eventually make sense. Without wanting to sound pedantic, I think the suggestion applies here, too.  
> 

Her lungs were full, soaked in unshed tears and unfair blood; she choked, not breathed, maybe hallucinating from the lack of oxygen – morsels of a life just ended, rushing rabidly inside her head, faster than the car she was in. Parisian streets passed by her in a blur, streetlights and shadows lending otherworldly colours to the stains on her clothes, her hair, her skin, tinting them either black or rich fluid crimson.

Neil drove. Alfred gaped at her. She couldn't hear him, couldn't hear either of them. Neil's mouth moved, Alfred's eyes murmured, but she heard and understood nothing.

The gun shot was the only voice ringing alive in her ears.

 

-

 

“You were staring at me from across the room.”

The German voice startles Aurora out of her reverie. She's supposed to give Alfred cover, once more playing his pair as they raid the house taken by Oberführer Emil Baumgartner for his little party in search of any of the documents HQ has learned to be in his possession; something about a cleansing, persecution against notorious French nationals who are either Jewish or have ties to the Communist party – a process they must now uncover and halt.

Alfred has already disappeared into the crowd after some small talk here and there whilst holding her lightly, a hand to her hip. He is probably somewhere upstairs already.

Aurora keeps an eye around, or so she should. A face strikes her in between the straight-backed soldiers and commanders in greens and blacks, amongst the women in glamourous gowns glowing right through the clouds of cigarette smoke and their layers of make-up. It is a charming face, exuberant like a flower at the peak of its fullest bloom, and she knows who this is: Oberführer Baumgartner's wife. Her data had been briefed. Her picture had not been included, but Aurora has seen her anchored upon the German host's chest and arm, intimate, whispering conspiracies every few minutes, even though he seems to favour engaging with his guests, fellow combatants stationed for rest in Paris. He never once bats as much as an eyelash towards his doting spouse.

Her heart starts racing as soon as she first identifies Frau Baumgartner. A quaint thrill surges again when their eyes meet and Aurora recognizes in her a flicker of a woman she knew in The City of Light before the war – Danielle was but a ghost now, Aurora hadn't kept any pictures, her features as prone to evanescence in time as words drenched in wine carelessly spoken. They had been close, she and Danielle, but war sets a fog on memory and Aurora Luft can hardly recognize her own face in the mirror these days, let alone remember Danielle's countenance in detail. She was dead now, in any case.

And yet, the Oberführer's wife has somehow yanked her friend's figure from that treasured collection of recollections and unintentionally assaulted her slightly inebriated senses with it. The third time Aurora's chest seems about to burst with frantic beating is when the woman vanishes from her view completely–

Only to materialize at Aurora's elbow: a glass of champagne in hand, dressed in dark red, neck and ears shining with large and intricate jewelry, adding shine to her already glimmering presence. She should be watching, backing Alfred, but she only has eyes for – by now she could swear it is – Danielle Fournier risen from the grave.

“I had a feeling we had met before,” Aurora answers the enemy honestly, in French before she can stop herself.

“Alors, êtes-vous Française?” The characteristic sounds of the German language bludgeon her words in French, though for some reason Aurora is certain Frau Baumgartner does not do it in malice.

The spy smiles, brimming with anxiety. She's always anxious in some way whenever she adopts a temporary name, a temporary biography. She responds in the affirmative; Aurora isn't French, but the woman she is at the moment _is_.

“Who did you mistake me for?” The host's wife is sweet enough in her bluntness. Her wedding ring glistens, unscratched, the bubbles in her drink pop, her painted lips part in a warm smile.

“A friend I knew.” No lie.

“I'm sorry to disappoint you.” She reaches for a glass from a nearby waiter and offers it to Aurora, who takes it without looking up at the other woman, focusing on the champagne. “But maybe we can be friends. I'm Katja.”

Aurora has to smile. She does, unsure of whether because she needs to or wants to.

“Delphine.”

“ _Delphine_ ,” Katja repeats slowly. (Alfred climbs down the stairs in a hurry as discreetly as he can, Aurora sees him from the corner of her eyes.) The German adds, cheeky, “Enchantée.”

Aurora gulps, takes one step to the side.

“Enchantée.”

 

-

 

Amidst fog or smoke, his figure stands.

Fire burns, dust swipes existence and covers everything, suffocates her; he stands still, tall and handsome, no gun wound to be seen, flames and black smoke no hindrance to him.

Until water comes. It doesn't drown him as it must have done in reality, when René leaped into the river, never to be seen again. Instead, it falls over him tenderly, as if rain could feel, forgive, release. The smoke begins to dissipate as his hair slicks down and his features melt with each drop.

She doesn't know when his square chin and dreamer's eyes become soft and witty, when his shadow loses height, when the idea of René becomes someone else entirely and the background turns from chaos to Eden – the fruit of temptation displayed, offered by the woman's hands, red as her lips, red as the foreign flags that surround her just as the ones now hanging from every major building in occupied Paris.

Aurora is always out of breath when she wakes.

 

-

 

Droplets splash at the small window above them, a light rain trying its unsuccessful best to clean away the filth smothering the lights of Paris as day rises. Sometimes the noise muddles her brain, like Morse in a bad tuning, and part of her remembers that she hasn't contacted her team in a day. None of them know where she is or with whom, but they're each safely hidden, she knows it, until she returns to reclaim the reigns; she is also safe in this small Resistance-owned French apartment she has selfishly taken as the rain falls outside – safe, yes, even though a much greater tempest had raged within. Unlike the outward precipitation, the thunder of uncontrolled feeling has subsided for the moment, turning into delicate, devoted caresses like gentle waves in a calm day's ocean.

A careful hand tucks a lock of golden hair behind one of her ears before resting calmly upon her naked, heaving chest. The warmth beside her is unlike any she's ever known. For a second, she thinks something of Alfred has rubbed off on her, because the music of their touching skin or the taste of the very image of their entwined bodies make absolute sense.

“I'm sorry I yelled at you and that I pointed a gun at you.”

Aurora smiles, even if she feels sharp sadness when she gazes at the all but healed scrapings on her lover's cheek. They're almost entirely gone, as if by miracle, but _she_ can see them. Tentatively but surely, a loving thumb brushing over that stainless scar, she kisses Katja on the lips, holds her tight knowing tomorrow she won't, in favour of prowling the streets in search of danger, of Germans just like the woman in her arms right now, navigating the brutal eyes the Gestapo has laid upon her and hers.

“I see your cough is gone! And on a serious note, I'm sorry I pointed a gun at you, too, that other night,” Aurora replies, delivering yet another shy kiss before they both break into light laughter.

“It's alright. With my being married to Emil, I wouldn't expect you to act any other way.”

“It's more than that, Katja.” Aurora chooses to ignore the attempt at humour in mentioning the German' spouse. “It's everything. It's your husband, it's what I do, it's the whole damn war...”

Katja traces circles over Aurora's skin, distributes little kisses over her collarbone, her neck, her lips.

“I hate it, too. The war took much from everyone.” She sighs. “But it also gave me you.”

Katja's red scarf, hanging in the chair that is probably the only other piece of furniture in the room, billows in the slight wind coming in from a half-closed window – neither see or care about the water getting in and getting it wet all over again.

 

-

 

His touch was jittery like that of someone touching the corpse of a person they knew, unbelieving and in denial of the fact that a loved one had passed. But Alfred was also careful, almost loving; he took Aurora's coat off, slowly sliding it down her shoulders and arms. She didn't say a word, body rigid, unmoving eyes, blank and fixed for what had been an hour, maybe more.

There being no other women in the team, somebody had to prepare her for relocation. They would leave Paris, leave France in a few hours, meet in some field, board an illegal plane and fly directly back to Camp X. Stealth was always mandatory, but if anyone were to see them somehow, the highest-ranking amongst them and sole female of the group should not be covered in blood.

Reminding her of such circumstances, however, proved a problem.

When Alfred raised a clean cloth to wipe the blood away from her forehead, a harpy's death grip overtook his wrist. Aurora didn't say a word. She only vaguely shook her head, those big, reddened eyes the colour of starving sorrow staring back at him at last.

“We have to clean you up,” he explained, as soothing as he could despite the pain she inflicted on him.

“It's all I have left,” she whispered, feeling the light crust forming upon her own skin where the crimson liquid was drying.

It was the same with René. He'd spilled into oblivion, gone right through her needy fingers. Now another person she loved deliquesced in her grasp, their time too short and turbulent to grant her any material mementos. Her passion vehement, but never enough to save anyone close to her; she had helped save complete strangers, people who might not even have spoken her language, but she was unable to protect anyone who mattered to her.

Her jaw trembled, her eyes registered little more, marred with tears which finally reached the surface. Loss put weight upon her limbs, stuffed her lungs. Still covered in red and in the grimy air of Europe and its stench of death, Aurora cried, alone, in front of a silent Alfred.

Something in her now repelled him, and as much as he wanted to offer her any sort of support, he couldn't bring himself to touch her any longer. The very hold she kept of his wrist, weaker by the second, was hot iron, human sludge; the spell was broken.

By the time she was empty again, the red splatters had turned brown. Even colours could die.

After that, Aurora offered no resistance.

 

-

 

“We must clean Europe, of course,” Oberführer Baumgartner proclaims with utter conviction from his seat at the head of the table.

Aurora smiles at him with the strength of an Atlas carrying the world. She had convinced Alfred of accepting Katja Baumgartner's invitation of dining there again, only a more intimate party this time, just the two couples. Since Alfred hadn't had the time to properly investigate the endless documents in one of the bedrooms turned study, he hadn't opposed the idea, even if he had wondered why and how the Oberführer's wife could have taken such an unexpected and instantaneous liking to Aurora. Aurora herself couldn't provide an answer, of course – not for Katja's invitation nor for her acceptance of it, given that her yes had come before Alfred had had the opportunity to disclose the failure of his initial reconnaissance mission that night.

Now they're sitting face to face while the Oberführer and his wife sit at opposite ends of the table's length. The meal has already ended. Aurora can't remember the last time she has seen so much food anywhere in France since the hostilities began.

Emil Baumgartner doesn't smile. There's a light in his eyes whenever he speaks of his beloved Germany, of victory, of Hitler; of brotherhood, of purity, virile strength. He's seen war up front and still manages to exchange its concrete reality of cadavers and rubble for romantic ideas of sacrifice and bravery, like a little boy wrapped in his country's flag while playing with his toy soldiers.

He never glances at Aurora.

Or at Katja.

“How about we leave the boys to talk politics on their own?” She interrupts her husband's diatribe on the modern world all of a sudden, raising herself and giving Aurora's shoulder a graceful tap. Katja tugs at her own red scarf, a large smile on her lips. “If you enjoy art, I can show you the wonderful paintings Emil has collected since we've arrived. The art market is very active here.”

“What a great idea, Schatzi,” Baumgartner says without a change in tone and without raising his eyes, keeping them fixed either on Alfred's or on the flat, dead ones staring back at him from a portrait of his führer hanging on a nearby wall.

Although morbidly curious to see the Oberführer defend the twisted views that infect his nation, Aurora finds herself devoid of options and thus follows Katja's lead. She excuses herself and stands, taking the officer's wife's side with some awkwardness when Katja links arms with her. She's warm and radiant, Katja, even if there is a tint of melancholy hidden in the corner of her smiles. For a second, Aurora forgets she's German, the wife of an important man in a military German institution, and feels as if she is back in springtime Paris with her friends, strolling with Danielle, talking to one another at the forefront of the group so the boys wouldn't listen to their plans of changing the world.

Katja holds her close. Aurora can't tell if it's the grip of a dear friend or the choke-hold you'd give to a hostage you're keeping close.

“Emil gets a little overexcited sometimes,” she confides, still smiling openly. “He begins by insulting every other person in the world, starting with the French. It's not that I feel I must protect your sensibilities, I just think you'll enjoy this night a little better without listening to his injuries. I'm sorry about your Alfred, though. You can't always save them all, can you?”

“I suppose not. And don't worry, he's not that sensitive,” Aurora says, pretending like she can't still somehow feel Alfred's hand nearly smashing her own in despair when he had cried retelling the barbarities he had uncovered at St. Antoine.

They climb the stairs at a steady pace, in tandem.

“He wasn't always like that, you know” Katja resumes. And, with a lower voice, “ _Germany_ wasn't always like this.”

Aurora looks at her.

“You don't seem very approving of Herr Hitler,” she leans in and whispers, as if they were two schoolgirls trading confessions.

Katja stares back at her with a locked jaw. Her smile dies out for a few seconds. Aurora can't tell what it means, if the woman is crying for help or if she's testing her so she can provide the Gestapo with yet another name.

The German official's wife places a hand upon Aurora's. Her reaction is to interlock some of her fingers with Katja's; if this is a test, she has to play her part. If it isn't, a friendly connection to someone in Katja Baumgartner's position could be a real asset to the team, to the allied intelligence. She gives Katja's fingers a small, supporting squeeze.

“You're very perceptive, Delphine.”

They enter a room, lights not yet on. A faint yellow comes from the hallway they have just come from. There is little to see apart from the dim shine of light reflected in their eyes. They stand in front of one another, close, Aurora can feel Katja's breath on her skin. Katja has something to say; maybe she wants to shed the great burden these shadows they're submerged in have placed upon her shoulders. Maybe she's personally guilty of something, wants to say it, get it off her chest, confess sins or abuses suffered... Maybe she knows something. Maybe she turns.

“Why are you here, Delphine?”

Aurora gulps. Katja's eyes are piercing even in darkness, though her voice remains low and gentle.

“You invited me,” she says, trying to smile.

“You didn't have to come. You're French, you should hate us, and yet you are in the house of an Oberführer of the Waffen-SS, a house taken, stolen from the possession of one of your own people.”

“I sympathize,” Aurora nearly spits out. This is dangerous.

The strength in Katja's grip falters for the smallest of instants.

“With National Socialism?”

Aurora thinks fast. She doesn't shift her gaze for a second. Her voice is steady even if there is a maddened canon blasting within her ribcage. She takes a firm hold of Katja's hand now and envisions it's Danielle she's talking to. In her fantasy, she speaks absolute truth.

“ _With you_.”

She says the right words. Amidst the shadows, there's that smile again, that charming, honest, beautiful smile that made her think of Danielle in the first place.

“You would've liked me better before.”

She follows the same track. Katja needs affection, that much is clear; she'll hold on to anyone who gives it to her. She is lonely, unloved, her own husband won't even look at her. But Aurora does.

“I like you well now.”

Safe, the spy blinks, assured of her success, but in that flash of complete darkness, her certainty cracks. Her lips, which she had coloured in strategy, get their hue smeared, wiped, as Katja's own lips touch them, her warm breath fills her mouth, her heartbeat blasts against Aurora's chest. Aurora will never know what she did, how she responded, the kiss is so quick, she will never be able to remember – human memory frail as human flesh touched by a bullet – whether she kissed back or froze or pushed Katja away. She won't even remember how on Earth the lights were turned on or how and when Oberführer Baumgartner and Alfred himself arrived to see the paintings she was supposed to have seen.

She'll only remember the droplet of sweat running down her gown's exposed back and the chill all over her skin left by the absence of Katja's touch now that she has promptly moved away to greet the gentlemen, as if nothing had happened.

Aurora sees the look on Alfred's face and decides she doesn't want to know what colour she smells like just then.

 

-

 

The bump nearly knocks her down. Neil is the one who catches her, a mighty hand on her arm. They were rushing through the gate into hospital grounds when this fraternal shadow in the night, head bowed, walked right into Aurora. Before Neil can manage a gruff but caring “All right?” to his companion as she steadies herself, it's the other figure who speaks first, before the duo can ignore the impulse to apologize and make a quick get away.

“Delphine?”

Aurora looks up.

“Katja,” she breathes out.

She exchanges a quick glance with Neil so he'll carry on without her for now. He keeps to the shadow so Katja can't see his face. She's not stupid as to not notice the secrecy.

“I'm sorry I hit you, I wasn't paying attention,” Katja says with a faint, forced smile. “Your friend isn't very polite.”

“He's just worried,” Aurora invents.

“So you know someone who got hurt in the explosion as well?”

Aurora is thankful that it is night time; she can barely see how red Katja's eyes are, so she hopes Katja can't see how pale she goes at the question. Of course she knows someone. That's why she and Neil are here. Harry had set the bomb, of course, but he miscalculated; the blast had been greater than it should've been, affected more people than it should have. It did, however, take one of the intended targets, and obviously Emil Baumgartner was that man.

“A friend, yes,” Aurora lies through her teeth.

She's lost count of the lies she has told Katja, even if that one truth among them pierces her chest and dries up her mouth whenever she is false towards this woman. All her lies leave her tasting bitter, but in the end it is the sweetness of that truth that lasts inside. She does wonder whether Katja has ever made that subtle flavour out in her lips or if she goes away wondering why “Delphine” tastes so rotten.

“I'm leaving already, I won't hold you, then.” Katja's voice drops as she turns to go. She doesn't. “Delphine...”

Aurora doesn't move. Something is boiling within Katja. Maybe she _has_ realized what she's been drinking out of Aurora's lips.

“Who is that man?” But she allows Aurora no time for an answer, following immediately with “And the other one? The one with you earlier today.”

Cold sweat.

“We didn't meet earlier today, Katja.”

“No, _you_ didn't see me, but _I_ saw _you_. And a young fellow, with glasses.”

Beat.

“Katja –”

The German rushes forward, their noses almost touch.

“What are you involved in?” She hisses, her accent as strong as ever. Aurora sees, as a beam of artificial light illuminates a portion of Katja's face, the scrapings on her cheek. A gasp rises in her breast and Aurora's vision blurs.

“You got hurt,” she says, nearly deprived of her own voice, raising an unsteady hand to Katja's cheek.

Her fingers never come near the damaged flesh. Katja swats her hand away.

“I'm so _stupid_ ,” she says, and Aurora takes in that broken look like a knife. Katja's voice is more worn than combative, blood spilling slowly from a fatal gash. “Did I tell you everything you needed from me? Did your fake husband find what he was looking for in Emil's study? Hm?”

Silence. Aurora can only stare, slumped shoulders. How can she speak when she can barely breathe?

“You knew,” is all that she's able to come up with.

“But unlike you,” Katja mutters, “I never told, I never lied.”

The spy breathes in fire, her lungs get scorched with threats and unreleased sighs, with the ghosts of Katja's whispers.

“You're not –”

“I understand your hating us, I really do –”

“I don't hate you –”

“– even _I_ hate Germans these days –”

“– you weren't supposed to get hurt –”

“– but a bomb in the middle of Paris, Delphine, – if your name even _is_ Delphine – what were you thinking?”

Light flickers over Katja's features. A lonesome tear trails down her maimed flesh. A cold wind blows by. Aurora's fingertips are frozen, Katja is melting ice. Paris has never been so quiet or so immersed in black.

“I was following orders,” Aurora explains, truth that seems a lie, and a badly-told one at that.

“The entire Wehrmacht and the Schutzstaffel would say the same about any missing persons or bodies unaccounted for in these streets. That soldier we ran from once would, too.”

Aurora's jaw clenches by itself, her forehead throbs and her teeth hold back the words pummelling behind them, lethally anxious to be let out. Katja has no strength to say anything else. She turns her back again. One step triggers Aurora's tongue.

“Wouldn't it be better if he had died? He _hurts_ you, we both know that. It's why you wear that scarf.”

She sees Katja's back rise and fall before they are face to face again. Katja's inferior lip quivers. She nods.

“He does,” she admits, “he does hurt me. But he's also the reason I'm alive and fairly well rather than begging or being beaten in worse ways by worse men.”

The sketch of a retort lives in Aurora's mind, as she attempts to think of something to say, straightening her back but finding only more and more weight falling upon it, forcing her down. Her knees are bent, her chest compressed, her limbs weary. Katja is close again and she finds herself shocked at witnessing the sharpest of knives dripping through the softest lips she has ever known.

“He doesn't seem to remember it anymore since he started wearing black, but Emil is like me. A pariah. An _invert_. Depraved, sick, call it what you will. We decided that since we couldn't leave Germany, we should blend in. He enlisted just after we married so there wouldn't be any suspicion of his... _Preferences_ , his or mine. So that he could serve without worry, without the judgement of his colleagues, so that I could have some shred of comfort in my life as well. I burned so many books, we lost so many friends. We didn't like it, any of it, but we kept ourselves alive. Emil isn't like this –”

“Then take off the scarf,” Aurora finds herself commanding, her order dictated by outrage.

“I don't condone his actions,” Katja continues, paying Aurora no heed, “nor do I approve of his change of heart, his “ _cure_ ”. He's been playing the game for far too long and forgotten it was supposed to be just that, a role in a game. There is so much propaganda, so many sayings, so many beliefs we have pounded into our heads – all the officers are supposed to have children, as many as their wives can bear, even if it kills them. He wants to fit in, to prove himself. God knows what he has done in Poland or anywhere else. But I can't have children. I'm barren. He won't believe it, he wants to prove medicine wrong, he wants to prove to his men and his damned führer that he is a man without reproach, a man of the Reich, of Aryan excellence, so he keeps trying despite it all. Children are a fruit of pain, apparently – but if he dies, then where am I? I have nowhere to go. No friends or possessions in Germany, the Resistance wouldn't help me because I'm nothing but a _Kraut_ whore, clearly, to be used and humiliated. But, you know, I get it, I really get it that somewhere inside of you you might have cared enough to want to see this man out of my life, I really do get it. But I don't get risking other people like that. Two Parisians were caught in the explosion, did you know that? Do you care?”

Silence. There are answers for those questions, but in order to express them, Aurora would have to had properly digested all the information Katja has just given about herself.

Katja frowns for a second but it soon turns into a sad smile. She interprets Aurora's silence as she will.

“You're no better than us. If only we knew.”

She steps back. She walks away. Aurora takes out her revolver.

“Katja, stop,” she half-orders, half-pleads, taking shaking but expert aim at the other woman's back.

The targeted figure pauses for a second.

“Or what? You'll shoot me, Delphine?” She looks back over her shoulder. Her scraped cheek is fully visible under the streetlight.

Aurora tightens her grip, uses her other hand to support her wrist.

“Don't make me do this.”

Katja flashes another tired, sorrowful smile at her.

“I loved you. Whoever you were.”

She resumes her path.

Aurora bites her lip, her finger on the trigger. She need only pull it once, for though her palms are sweating and her arms are trembling, her training establishes her target with the uttermost precision. She might not be a sniper, but she can shoot and she can shoot well.

Katja never stops to look back.

A gun shot echoes throughout the streets of Paris, chained Paris. Men lying in beds inside the hospital jump up in night terrors from the sound; Emil Baumgartner, hurt but very much alive, sleeps soundly, like a baby; Neil Mackay makes his way to the nearest window to see without being seen.

Aurora Luft lowers her gun. Katja Baumgartner never flinched. She watches her walk away into the night and disappear in blackness just as the shot she fired had done until her emotions can no longer be contained. With a heart as heavy as iron, she herself retreats into the all-devouring arms of darkness.

 

-

 

The rest of Europe is plunged in horror and yet there are bright lights everywhere in Paris if one knows where to go. Aurora can't decide whether this annoys her or breeds admiration in her; if the French make the whole thing seem frivolous or if they're brave to the point of not letting tragedy and foreign imposition bring their city and spirits down.

She also cannot decide on her motives for being in one of Paris' many cabarets at this time of the night, without a proper Ausweis, unaccompanied by any of her teammates; neither can she divine the motive for having agreed to take a German woman she has practically just met to one of the only open venues none of the other Germans visit. At first she swears she has to keep an eye on Katja Baumgartner, get closer to her, maybe turn her if the opportunity presents itself – the woman is certainly interested enough in _her_. They still haven't discussed that kiss they shared last time they saw one another at the Baumgartner dinner.

And yet her hand hovers dangerously close to the one Katja rests upon the table. Aurora swears again that this is duty, that if seduction is to be put in the game then it is in nothing unlike the men she has had to entice before. She swears this is duty – even if the memory of the kiss lingers in her mind and hot over her lips.

“This is very nice, Delphine,” Katja says, beaming as her (she is the best-dressed person in the room.) “I never get to go out here. Emil doesn't much care for my whereabouts most of the time, but I wouldn't know where to go, alone in Paris.” Her smile loses a bit of its luster. “It feels good to be away from all the uniforms and insignias, too.”

Maybe getting Katja to trust her will be easier than she thought. She's vulnerable, ill-treated, ignored; she _does_ want to be loved, and dearly. Aurora talks herself into this strategy – after brushing the back of her hand upon Katja's.

“I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. I used to come here every once in a while before...”

Speech gets cut off. She used to come here with René.

“Before the führer?” Katja's fingers draw tiny circles around Aurora's knuckles, seemingly absentminded until she casually lowers her own hand on top of Aurora's and keeps it there. “Germany was a better place before him, too. The country was broke, of course, and we had no morale, but... For people like me,” she says, pressing Aurora's hand ever so slightly, “people like _us_ , the Weimar government was kinder. Turned more of a blind eye. You had to watch your back but it was nothing compared to what it is today. Being in here right now reminds me of that time.”

Despite the lights on the audience being dimmed down, Aurora spots another table occupied by a pair of women on the other side of the cabaret. She has seen homosexuals before, doubtless, after all she had lived in Paris a good while. But she doesn't have the heart to correct Katja on her assumption that she and her are the same. And she looks so much like Danielle, her touch is so light and soft but still somehow steady, strong, just like Danielle's, she can't say for sure if the hole in her chest comes from losing René or from being so violently reminded of having lost Danielle.

“You lived in Berlin?”

Katja acquiesces.

“It wasn't as spectacular, clearly, but I felt welcomed enough.”

The dancers on stage take their positions and perform their number. A waiter approaches their seats. Aurora, without thinking, is quick to remove her hand from inside Katja's when he arrives to provide the new bottle of wine they had requested. She regrets it immediately, seeing her partner flinch at the movement, just a blink, a jump in her chair that not even the waiter catches. He moves away, as oblivious to them as ever.

Before she can say a word, Katja speaks.

“Forgive me, I've made you uncomfortable.”

“Oh, no, it's not you –”

“Yes, it is. I'm putting the cart before the horses –”

“No, it's me, I'm the problem.” Aurora leans in, fumbles with her syntax, reaches out for Katja again. The champagne must be working because she's beyond thinking. The words spill from her lips without her full acknowledgement of what they mean. “It's just – I've never really been with a woman before.”

Her mind races to find a justification for that confession in the context of this self-assigned mission but nothing comes up. Just the recollection of standing very close to Danielle Fournier under the rotunda at parc Monceau after a storm once, laughing, wet and panting, faces but millimetres away, eyes locked – until René's voice beckoned from afar and it all dissolves.

Katja still shifts bashful on her seat, acutely self-aware. She _knows_ she stands out in here.

“Much less a German one just as Germany marches all over your country,” she remarks with a yellow grin, looking down to the hands she now kept on her lap.

Aurora stares at her, mouth agape. Not only can she not explain her own actions to herself, she can't seem to find any other things to tell and comfort the woman in front of her either.

“Katja, I'm –” she blurts out, “I'm sorry.”

“It's fine, Delphine. I shouldn't push you, put you in awkward positions. What will your friends say, your husband –?”

“Please stop. I came of my own volition, I don't care about what other people think. You're not forcing me into anything, you're not guilty of anything.”

“ _Heil Hitler_ ,” Katja says, a bit louder, staring intently at Aurora like a wild bird in a cage. “Bin ich nicht?”

Aurora bites her lip, Katja drinks what's left of her glass. Her companion follows suit for lack of a better course of action, her head spinning as it is and yet she gulps more alcohol down. Most people are looking in their direction, having overheard the intruding language. Their gaze rips apart Katja's fancy clothes, peels the skin off Aurora's body.

Katja doesn't look up while Aurora takes another gulp after refilling her glass for the umpteenth time. Even the band has gone silent.

“Thank you for the lovely night, Delphine, I really appreciate what you did for me,” Katja says, getting up with her head down, “but I think it's time I go home.”

Everyone stares as she makes her way out. Aurora's cheeks burn. She grits her teeth. Her legs are jelly. Nevertheless, she starts up and dashes out, tossing some money at the waiter on the way. Katja Baumgartner hasn't gone far, though she's walking fast down the cobblestone street.

“Katja. Katja!” She chases her, grabs her arm. “This is a bad time. The SS are about to make their rounds, you know that. We can't stay out right now.”

“Das ist kein Problem, oder? I'll be fine. You need shelter, Delphine, go back.” The concern in her voice is real enough, the colour of her eyes truthful enough (is this how Alfred sees the world? Aurora shouldn't get drunk. Or maybe she should more often.)

The spy sinks her heel into the ground. She offers no rational explanation (she has none).

“No.”

“Don't be unreasonable, don't give them motive. You don't know what they're capable of. Go back.”

“Come with me.”

“I can't do that –”

“After what you pulled in there, neither can I.”

As Katja means to retort, the clock strikes somewhere, it's eleven o'clock in the evening and it's time for the elite of the German forces to take the Parisian streets in a display of force and will as they do every night. They'll march down the Champs-Elysées and at some point the brigade will find two stubborn women trying to talk sense into one another if they don't move soon. The sound of stomping soldiers' boots reach their ears.

“Scheisse.”

“Merde.”

A shadow comes into view from the corner ahead. A glint comes off his weapon when yellow lamplight hits it as soon as his eyes fall upon the two women. A patrolman.

“Halt!” Comes his shriek as he nears.

Aurora and Katja trade glances, eyes wide, the tendon on their necks stretched and about to snap. The heel of his boots crack on the street floor as the soldier approaches, his hands ready to pull on his gun at any moment if needed be. Aurora Luft's brain is spiralling inside her cranium; she has drunk much too much and she knows it much too well.

“Stay calm, Delphine. I can get us out of this.”

He's close now. His features are distinguishable if only one squints, which Aurora does, with intoxication, but what she sees is definitely not the product of alcohol fizzling all over the insides of her body.

“I have to go, Katja.”

“He will shoot you without a second thought, don't think of it –”

“That man has already seen me before, he'll kill me on sight even if I choose to comply.”

“What? What are you talking about, why?”

They had done some movements with their arms during their hushed dialogue. It was all the man needed to squint right back – and keep his gun closer, higher, at the perfect point for a quick shot. His step grows faster.

“ _Halt!_ ” He hollers a second time, louder this time.

“I'm sorry,” Aurora mutters with a tug to Katja's hand, flinging herself into the Parisian night.

“Wait!”

Aurora runs. Katja will be fine, she's the wife of a high-ranking SS officer. Explaining where she was and why to her husband could be difficult, but she – Katja is running after her.

The German sentinel, the same one Aurora had had to seduce and knock out only four weeks prior in the middle of a mission as suspiciously and risky as it could have happened, raises his weapon, takes aim, and shoots.

Katja yelps once or twice in panic but he misses. It doesn't stop him from chasing them.

Without the benefit of an option, Aurora signals for Katja to follow. She waits until the German woman catches up with her before they both flee, together. She instructs Katja to remove her shoes the way she herself does so they are not slowed down by impractical footwear and Katja complies, already breathless and completely confused. They turn on another street, devoid of cars, hear the bullets smash against a concrete wall just behind them. The patrolman is still shooting while the sound of his boots grows stronger yet. Aurora doesn't stop to listen to what he is yelling, but by the look on Katja's face, it's a death sentence to them both.

“Delphine...” She's on the verge of tears.

Dizzy as she is, Aurora identifies their location at last. Not too far off there is an apt hideout used by the Resistance, empty as far as she knows, only a few blocks away. If she can manage to slither them both there, they will be safe for the night or for as long as it takes. Safety. What a beautiful feeling – but they must get there first. Katja has no time to protest about any of their circumstances when Aurora sees a bicycle resting against a nearby wall. She doesn't like stealing, especially not from a people in these conditions and in this time, but she also doesn't enjoy being someone's object in pursuit (much less when she is as drunk as this), but if she wants Katja and herself out of trouble, actions must be taken.

(Why is she suddenly so invested in the well-being of a German officer's wife? The wife of a man she would gladly kill, a woman from an invading, unscrupulous, barbaric country; a woman who, depending on how much Aurora reveals, will have complete power over her destiny if ever she decides to open her mouth to that husband of hers, why?

But there are no words ringing in her conscience. Just plans. Envisioned actions. Calculated, desired results.)

It takes but a look for Katja to understand. She does what she can not to fall from the bicycle front and Aurora summons all of her being into the pedal. To the Canadian, who now sees little else but blotches of alternating colour and black, who sees but a recurrent face burnt inside her eyes, who feels little else than the night air caressing her working thighs and calves and the faint smell of female lips upon her own, the touch of female eyes inside her own – to this Canadian, they soar.

 

-

 

She still loves him, of course. He's the ghost gathering under her fingernails, the dust settling on her tired bones. The wound is too fresh. The gash in his flesh. The scratch marks etched in her lungs, as if she had drowned instead of him.

But every time she tries to remember a moment with him, it's some afternoon spent at the Café de Flore or a night out in the streets – with Danielle Fournier. And if René condensates into Danielle, Danielle liquifies into Katja. Aurora remembers what Paris was like before the occupation, before the war, she just cannot recall what _she_ was like before Katja anymore. She can see, pristine and perfectly, if she closes her eyes: the shrill of the birds, that one large tree that has fallen some five years ago; she can see René rallying their friends and Danielle smoking in the dark, she can see Pétain putting France's weapons down and De Gaulle's focused eyes delivering his radio appeal; she can see Americans prancing about Paris, she can see Napoleon claiming power, can see revolutionaries set up their barricades, she can even see, far away, back home, Jacques Cartier arriving, walking, breathing in her homeland. She can see all that and more if she concentrates, but she simply cannot recollect _herself –_ not a single instance in her recent past, not a second spent in recognizing herself in front of a mirror, not one utterance from the mouth she used to have, must have had.

That mouth had kissed Danielle's cheeks, tasted René's tongue – but that mouth did not belong to her any longer.

So Aurora loves him still – her shadow does. She won't say it out loud, won't even whisper it to herself alone in whatever makeshift bed she rests in, but Aurora Luft's heart and being have been mercilessly stolen. She could not oppose it, didn't want to, even knowing she should. She was much too soaked in Katja to even try.

Aurora loves her, the certainty inhabits her. Katja is the stirring inside her bones, the spirit tying them to the rest of her body, the stars shining in the sky and the ones once hidden in her soul; the unending ocean roaring and soothing within, waves crashing against the limits of her chest in power and peace. The light hair that stands on end on her arms, her neck. The name committed to her core. The light breaking in between the darkness of the deluge and the flood in itself.

The promise, _aurora_ of a new day.

 

-

 

Alfred lowers his head and the tip of his hat covers his eyes. He will wait for them here. Tom is north of this position, Neil west.

Meanwhile, Aurora and Harry traverse the street, together yet apart. They walk in strides but attempt to look natural, pulse racing, hoping not to be noticed most of all by the uniformed Germans or the collaborationist French policemen chatting just ahead, even if their location is precisely the spies' intended destination. Among them is Oberführer Baumgartner: all pose and steel, not a wrinkle in his official clothes, one foot inside his car, the rest of his lean, healthy body out, part of a circle with the others. Him they must harm, take out even if for a few miserable days so the order of persecution against _undesirable_ French citizens can be delayed enough for them to have a chance to escape; the others with him, if hurt or killed, are a bonus achievement.

If Harry is able to properly set the bomb, of course. (Collateral damage hasn't been calculated by HQ. All they can do is follow orders and hope for the best.)

They walk side-by-side, though at a distance of one another like strangers who accidentally move at the same speed, communicating like mimes, mouths shut. Aurora gives Harry the sign with an unneeded scratch to her nose. He clutches the home-made explosive tighter under his coat – Tom's coat, really, much too large for Harry but perfect to hide him and anything else in it as well – and they part ways, the silent ticking of the artifact marking down the rhythm and compass of their movements. Harry goes behind their intended targets, approaches the car so he can rig it when the distraction is set.

Aurora walks straight into the gathered men, into Baumgartner's direct view, noticing he has never looked so jolly or at ease than now, surrounded by a handful of other military-minded males. (She doesn't realize he isn't the only person around to recognize her.)

She beams at him imagining his face is someone else's. She thinks of Katja before she can stop herself and her cheeks glow pink.

“Frau Beraud,” he calls to her, polite but frigid.

“Oberführer Baumgartner, guten tag,” she says, coming closer, doing her best to attract all the present men's attention and to not give so much as a peek towards Harry as he, too, assumes his position and initiates his work.

Aurora can't hear the bomb ticking, but she counts each click in her mind, an anxious musician focused on her metronome; the symphony must be perfect, no musical note out of tune.

The German officer introduces her to his companions. They greet one another affably enough, given the situation. She charms them with every breath, naturally. Baumgartner has already stepped away from the car, drawn closer to her, the centre of the group. The men all have their backs to the vehicle – their eyes grope every inch of her – while Harry is somewhere behind it or under it. She knows – trusts – he's doing his job even if she can't see him.

“I should thank you, Frau Beraud,” Baumgartner says in his low, controlled voice. “I didn't listen when my colleagues advised against bringing my wife to France, as they themselves haven't, but now she is content at last. She's very taken with you and that keeps her out of my military obligations and away from trouble, so please be kind enough to accept my gratitude. Katja is happy having made a friend in the world.”

“All is well with you both, then, I take it?” _Tick-tock._

“Indeed, my thanks for your asking. I would suggest you stay a while more to meet her, she has gone to a store just now, but my wife takes her time and I would not like to waste yours.”

Katja is far off, then. Aurora is glad to hear it, relief sets her breathing pattern at ease (of course she doesn't realize the clicking of feminine heels coming nearer and nearer well behind her).

“Oh, well, I would stay if I could, but Alfred is waiting for me and I have to rush. It's a shame.”

“It is, yes. How is Herr Beraud? In good spirits, I hope?”

 _Tick. Tock._ The corner of her eyes have captured Harry's movements. He has finished and is already leaving the scene, an inconspicuous pedestrian calmly advancing towards the newspaper seller, their planned meeting point.

“Just so!”

“My regards to your husband.”

“My love to your wife.”

They nod as a parting gesture.

“Frau Beraud, one more thing.”

She gulps, arrests her steps. She has left the middle of the circle already but is still too close, time is running out.

“I'm sure my wife would like you and your husband to know there will be a reception at the German embassy next Friday. If you have appreciated the art she showed you and if Herr Beraud is desirous of more on the topics we discussed the other night, please do come.”

“Thank you, it's kind of you to invite us. I'll tell him, I'm sure he'll love to.”

Emil Baumgartner gives her the faintest of grins, one of the only times Aurora sees his lips turn into anything other than a rigid straight line. She nods again. The men return to their affairs and she walks away.

Alfred is distant but watching. She meets Harry, buys an edition of the newspaper.

“Is everything done?” She whispers to him in English so the young man to whom she gives her money doesn't understand them, or so she hopes.

“Just give it a few more seconds and that car will be done for.”

“Good. Well done, Harry.”

“We should _really_ get going, though.”

Aurora looks back, gives Alfred a signal by tucking an nonexistent strand of hair behind her ear. He in turn signals to the others that it's time to leave. She looks at the Germans and the French turncoats one last time before scurrying off with Harry through a backstreet to rejoin the team.

If only her gaze had not been so mercilessly focused on the dark uniforms, she might have picked up on a familiar face walking right into the blast site – looking only at her.

At the same moment Katja Baumgartner opens her mouth with Aurora's alias on her tongue, the ticking ends.

 

-

 

Barefoot, she rushes along the smallest and quietest of streets. Her feet are already sore but Aurora can't stop now – she has taken off her shoes, muted the audible trail left by them so as to not attract attention or denounce her position to the Gestapo agents who, she is certain, follow her every move. Maybe it was the sway of her hips or the look on her eyes, but something had ticked someone off. They might not know who she is, exactly, and to what extent her activities go against their new _Teutonic_ laws, but there is at least one man sniffing her down, at least one set of eyes following her from somewhere, somehow.

Cars are avoided, as are the streets where Nazi units have appropriated buildings for themselves. She doesn't know how many agents are after her or how close they are, but she knows for a fact (though she has no proof but for the sinking feeling in her stomach) that there are men coming for her. She has been trained to pick up on suspicious settings, to identify the elements that define stalking. It seems like the purest brand of paranoia – and it is – but it's undeniable that Paris is infested with eyes in every alley, every window, every empty street or full restaurant gathering. The Germans and their methods are not to be toyed with or made fun of.

Aurora hurries, stumbles about. She wishes there was something around to ease her escape, a car or a bicycle just for her to get ahead, the same way she had done in the company of Katja that one time.

It feels like a lifetime ago. She hasn't seen or contacted Katja for a month, now. The last time they'd met, Aurora had pointed a gun at her, threatened to shoot her; she had figured out too many secrets, made out the clandestine nature of Aurora's entire presence in the taken French capital. Katja knows too much.

The idea that maybe Katja has told comes briefly into her mind. Easy it would be.

But that thought is immediately erased by another, by the images and sensations she and Katja had created together. No one who has ever been an accomplice in bringing such life into another person in such a manner could ever betray them as cruelly as that, could they? There have been so many lies Aurora has covered her own skin with, forcing Katja to peel them off, but also so many truths... If the Gestapo is after Aurora, then she prays – believes – Katja has had nothing to do with it.

A black luxurious car comes down the street. The lines are clearly German.

Aurora considers her options, guessing on whether she has already been seen or if she still has a chance of throwing herself behind something and hiding as the vehicle goes by.

But she has been seen, shoes dangling from a hand, socks black with dirt. Aurora turns back as harmlessly as she can, intending to go back the way she came, there having less space to cover in backtracking than proceeding forward. Maybe if she pretends she's drunk, wobbles a bit, laughs to herself, maybe whoever is in the car will pay her no mind whether they are or not an agent of the German inquisition.

The car accelerates.

Aurora runs.

She's able to reach the corner and turn into the last street she had been in, but the car zooms by her, cuts her off. Before she can try another route, one of its doors is flung open, a gun is pointed at her.

“Get in,” Katja orders, steady on the trigger.

“Katja?!”

“ _Now_.”

Aurora glances sideways to make sure there is nobody watching (she can't guarantee it) but speedily complies, plopping herself down on the passenger's seat and shutting the door as Katja drives.

“Duck,” she commands, one hand at the steering wheel, the other still infallibly pointing the handgun to the woman she has just abducted.

Questioning is not a valid alternative in these circumstances, so Aurora does what she is told. She could probably take the weapon from Katja's grasp any second she wanted, what with the distraction caused by driving in itself, but she prefers to allow the events their own pace. Half of her is excited for meeting Katja again while the other argues it might be better to let the person who is armed and possibly in the throes of strong negative emotions to feel as if she is in control until she calms down. Katja speaks. She listens closely.

“Whatever it is you're doing, the Gestapo found out about it. They're out for your head, but before you even dare to suggest I had anything to do with it, I'm the only German alive in this entire country that's interested in your survival. They don't know what you look like, not yet, you still have a chance. But you're going to have to start being honest with me _right now_.”

Acceptance of her terms is stamped in Aurora's large eyes despite her silence. Katja doesn't lower her Walther P38, but her voice is no longer a raging machine gun.

“What is your name, your real name?”

Having a gun pointed at her head isn't the reason she decides to do what she does; warrior's guilt isn't what compels her either, though her conscience _is_ troubled by the civilians harmed by her actions, thanks to Katja's triggering a return of the humanity lurking inside the soldier's shell sergeant Luft has let herself become. How strange it is to feel one's entire body react to someone else, acquire new dimensions, take up new space, become better! Aurora isn't scared, not of the firearm anyway – she can tell when a gun is locked –, but there are multiple explosions taking place somewhere within her chest, there's an invisible loving wave washing over her, as an ocean reclaims its lost-and-found offspring, welcomes it back into its bosom, into the realm of the living. Despite every issue corrupting their relationship, whatever it had been, this woman beside her, holding her captive at gun point, is risking her own life and integrity to save her – the gun is military, German-made for German forces, the car is clearly a new model sent to Emil Baumgartner after the destruction that had befallen his previous vehicle, and she was driving by herself in a city that wanted nothing else but squash her as a bug and spit her damned self out.

She doesn't hesitate. Not even the voice of Duty, usually so loud and overwhelming inside her head, a mixture of Duncan Sinclair's voice and her own, can touch, much less quiet, that love – for it is love, unmeasurable, unstoppable, irrational, profound love! – she feels for Katja.

“Aurora.”

“Aurora,” Katja tries it our on her mouth, a child tasting a new kind of candy. She says it to herself again before continuing her enquiry, “Aurora what?”

“Luft.”

Katja frowns.

“ _Luft_ ,” she says with the name's original intonation, smiling despite of herself. “Aurora Luft. German.”

“My father is German. And Jewish.”

“... Are you French?”

“Canadian.”

The driver is legitimately surprised, gaping at Aurora with wide eyes. She drops the gun – locked and useless, as Aurora has diagnosed – on her lap, shakes her head a little.

“Are you a spy, then?”

“You could say that, yes. Yes, I am,” Aurora opens up – some weight she will have to carry well into her grave, but falsity to the one person who gave her new meaning even at the eye of the tempest would not be one of those crimes.

“So all you said and all we did, those were all lies? Just a way to get close, to get information?” If heartbreak had a voice, it would sound like Katja's.

“What we had was the most real thing in my entire life.”

Katja sighs, considers her words, gulps. She's doing her best to swallow down tears.

“How can I possibly believe that, Delphi– _Aurora_?”

Aurora sits up in search of Katja's attention, pleading – the most faithful religious follower could not muster the same desire for forgiveness she transpires.

“Because you _feel_ it. It's not a lie, it's not possible –!”

She can't even finish a proper sentence as her voice cracks with the sudden emotion.

Katja avoids her stare, squares her jaw.

“Keep your head down,” she says, gently pushing Aurora back to an uncomfortable but undetectable position in her seat, “we don't want anyone to see you. Which _arrondissement_ was that building we were in, once?”

Aurora gives her directions. Katja takes some turns and sets them en route. She still doesn't look at her passenger.

“I was trying to make a difference in the world. Turns out you're the one who made a difference in me.” Aurora smiles sadly. “I'm sorry, Katja. For all I did. But what I said, all of it, all of it was true. I am _so_ sorry.”

Silence. Streetlights glare over Katja's face and Aurora can see flashes of the various expressions her countenance is attempting to choose from until it settles on the one most appropriate to her inner state. If a few moments before, silence had made Aurora uneasy and wary of where this encounter would lead to, that final loosening of Katja's jaw, the dilatation of her pupils, the soft breath that escapes from her parted, red lips sets the spy's heart at ease.

“Accepted. Aurora.”

Speed diminishes. A chill is in the Parisian air tonight, the sky loaded with low, ominous clouds, but warmth thrives in the inside of that beautiful BMW 335 as it reaches its destination. Rain starts falling the second Katja pulls up.

“Go. You'll be safe here, won't you?”

“You're going back?” What a stupid question. Had she not already deduced the car was her husband's? What freedom had Katja to stay here? Was being helped by her not enough, what else could Aurora expect of her?

“I have to. Emil won't miss me, but if he arrives to a missing car he'll be alert and suspicious, that's for sure.”

Aurora nods awkwardly as she hears the answer she already knew and opens her door.

“I shouldn't be long.”

“What –?”

“If you're willing to wait, I can take a bicycle and ride back here in fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“And _that_ won't awaken suspicion? I'm grateful for what you did for me, you don't owe me anything else, Katja, you don't need to keep me company,” Aurora says, for once in all of this letting her mind speak over her feelings.

“Not enough for him to care. Besides, you told me your name.” Katja finally meets her eyes, firmly but tenderly. “I think it's fair I tell you mine. Before Baumgartner. _My_ name.”

Reasons unknown to herself, Aurora blushes. She bows her head once, biting her lip, leans out of the car.

“Aurora.”

Katja takes her hand, pulls her closer.

There's no lightning or thunder outside yet, but it strikes within that great vehicle, between their bodies, sewing together their hearts once and for all. Their sins are lifted, they're clean. Lips meet. Everything makes sense, nothing else matters; unsaid words become songs, the hymns of Heaven, while bitterness dissolves as sugar in water, dissolves into colour, into light, and love blooms smack dab amidst the darkest of times, a blinding glint of hope cutting through the madness of this the worst of nightmares.

Aurora steps out, runs inside; Katja takes off. Anticipation and affection feed her while she waits upon that same iron bed she herself had once already made for them. Katja's name, Katja's name... Suspense energizes her, gives her a reason to look forward rather than resent a knock on the door, cheeks burning with excitement like those of a young girl awaiting the promised, long-coveted gift her first love is on the way with.

Rain pours outside.

Whatever Katja's surname is, she loves it already. The oath to reveal it will shelter Katja from all dangers as she makes her return, Aurora knows. The Deluge wouldn't stop her, not now. She worries, of course, the shower drops with violence from the heavy, black sky, lightning cracks and thunder booms as if the sky itself were at war with the earth, but the tingling left upon her mouth from where their lips had met assures her Katja will be here unharmed.

Soaked to her soul and cold as ice, teeth chattering and what seems like a cough coming on (but all in all unscathed), Katja is true to her word.

 

-

 

At Aurora's order Harry has no choice but to obey, so he opens the door. A woman steps inside their current hideout, eyes already locked upon his superior officer. She mutters a thick-accented “thank you” to him and goes directly to the sergeant while he is left wondering what on Earth a German could possibly be doing amongst them – and with Aurora's explicit acceptance.

Neil stares as well, remembering the night he and Aurora walked into this same short and memorable woman (she's wearing the same perfume, he notices), the same with whom Aurora had stayed for a while before following him into the hospital. Tom, as Harry, is equally ignorant of her identity but his smart gaze picks up on every detail – the common low heels she's wearing, the lipstick and the scarf of equal colour, red on her lips and around her neck; the brown strand of curvy hair on her forehead, the simple yet elegant hat that crowns her... He can attempt to draw this woman's story by looking at what she's wearing, and he does, quietly.

Alfred is the only one unconcerned with the woman's name (which Aurora reveals to them soon enough). He doesn't open his mouth for a second, though he's inclined to protest; he wants to ask Aurora the reason behind the presence of a Waffen-SS Oberführer's wife in the middle of a resistant spy cell. He wants to, but he doesn't. He doesn't need to. He just observes the colourful sparks that arise from each woman's skin as they move, always close to one another, as in a dance, tiny fireworks that sets them both alight in his eyes; the scent of their voices when they speak to one another in low tones instead of when they speak clearly to the rest of the men is novel to him but strangely benign to his senses. Katja Baumgartner hands Aurora a letter, documents, the kind he had searched for during the party he and Aurora had attended, but the imprint of the scene on his skin tells him somehow this information she brings is not the only motive for Katja's visit. Alfred knows Aurora is explaining to him, Tom, Neil and Harry why a German woman is there, why and how she is helping them, and although her discourse tastes of truth, it comes out in bursts of colour fading too quickly to be complete. He doesn't know what it is, but there's something missing in Aurora 's sentences, there's an invisible ellipsis after every phrase.

He's able to listen when Neil pulls Aurora aside to ask whether this is wise, whether they can truly trust Katja or not, and he hears splatters of red and orange and pink paint both women until Katja tells them, having overheard Neil as well, that Herr Hitler had betrayed Germany long before and that the part she was willing to play in aiding the resistant forces would be the one of true loyalty to her nation. Her statement sweeps clean the men's mouths and none of them can bring themselves to look her in the eye. Alfred doesn't let himself be intimidated, however, and he continues to study her.

He sees Aurora's fingers brush over Katja's knuckles as if by accident, but because of the latter's lips, which part at the gesture, a whirlpool of colour and radiance spring forth from them both and he knows everything has a purpose here.

Finally, he looks away, rubbing his now tearful eyes as if he had just stared into the sun for a few blinding seconds. Or at secret, shining, sacred treasures no man has a right to see. Or at scenes of the greatest intimacy like he has never taken part in or quite understood. Whichever reservations Alfred has about Katja, personally, he stores them deep within himself, if only because Aurora Luft and her are clearly, he concludes, undeniably, incurably, irrepressibly in love with one another.

He is the most civil and welcoming of the crew for the short time Katja remains with them. He is also the most torn. If Alfred has had a hard time in calling Aurora by her name before, now even gazing directly at her, into her once embracing, marvellous eyes, becomes impossible.

Aurora won't notice this so soon. Her own eyes are elsewhere. As professional as she is during this entire event, Alfred can taste her thoughts, her feelings, the pheromones in her skin and none of it has to do with him. Maybe, he thinks, she won't notice the change in his relationship to her at all.

 

-

 

“This is it, get in, get in!”

Katja hops off from the bicycle and runs up the steps to a small little eighteenth century building. Aurora runs up with her, bike in hand. She kneels down in the dark and searches for a key in some crevice between the floor and the door frame. She finds it at once and lets them in, turning it twice behind them.

They ascend the old, twisting stairway in a hurry, up to the last floor. Again, Aurora lets them in, locks the door as many times as it will allow and sets the bicycle against the handle to make it harder for an outsider to follow them in. Katja looks at the arrangement and at Aurora, who glances back at her, both breathless, sweaty, incapable of speech, both wide-eyed like scared little children.

Laughter erupts.

They give away balance and lean on one another in their sudden bout of joy. It takes them a full minute to recompose. When they do, their cheeks are a light healthy shade of cherry red in twilight, their bodies a bastion of reacquired youth – this is the most sincere instance of happiness either has experienced since that ghastly cloud of steel had gathered over Europe.

Curious, Katja examines the apartment.

“What is this place?”

“We'll be safe here, I doubt anyone followed us given the way and the speed at which we came. But since we have no curtains, we can't turn on the lights. And we should refrain from speaking as loudly as we just laughed, just to be sure.”

The guest doesn't insist, though her subtly arched eyebrows are a marked indication of her having noticed Aurora's deflecting the question. She doesn't even try to ask what had happened with that sentinel, predicting the results would resemble this one and wanting to avoid conflict after what had transpired in the last few minutes. She'd rather not inflame discord after having been stubborn enough to ruin their night out in the cabaret so rudely.

“Well,” she decides on ignorance, “is there a place to sit?”

Darkness allows for little to be seen. There are only two or three windows in total in the main room and they are the only sources of light. Katja can't make out her surroundings very well, but slowly she realizes how sparse the furniture is – a chair next to one of the windows, one of those simple iron beds under another, small glass portal to the outside. But yes, there is somewhere to sit, and Aurora conducts them both towards the bed. She has been here once or twice before – one time had been with René, she recalls, and he had then not been the man she had loved – and her mind is sharp and fresh enough to guide them without having to put out a hand forward for safety. There is, after all, little to stumble over or walk into. What Aurora is forced to do, as the duo make their way, is to fend off the images each step brings forth, like René's insistence of taking a place in bed beside her, on top of her, when she had not desired it, or when he at last, thankfully, settled to sleep on the floor, next to the chair, respecting her wishes after she had enunciated them and defended them with a little violence (but never equal to his own) a good dozen times. The anger evaporates, however, as those memories are replaced with the new ones being formed here and now, with Katja.

They reach their destination and sit down on the bed together, breathing in the night as if alone in this great city.

“Here we are, then,” Katja says in good humour, shrugging. “That was probably the most exciting night out in my life.”

Chuckling follows, naturally. Katja doesn't realize the hue of dark grey lodged in Aurora's laughter; she doesn't notice how she struggles with those past sounds and places and people nor how she brawls against the cataclysm operating inside for every time they touch or simply lock eyes. Katja doesn't truly see, Aurora feels and regrets, _Aurora_ at all. She sees only – and why would she expect to see anyone else? – Delphine Beraud.

And to Katja Baumgartner, that is all she can be; a meaningless name, a spectre to haunt her, as incorporeal as that name is, representing no real body, no real person, an expertly manufactured net to ensnare her, hold her captive to blindness.

Duty comes first. Missions must be carried out. Falsity utilized in the name of freedom and truth. And for that, Aurora Luft makes a battlefield out of her mind in which she herself yells at, shrieks at these fabricated, deceitful instances of herself and they scream and scratch back. Obligations! If taking Katja to a cabaret in Paris while her countrymen march over nations and bend them to their will, if this is how Aurora, who is supposed to gather intelligence or do whatever she can to help France rid itself of these bloody conquerors, if this is how she sticks to her missions, her duties, her loyalties, then France is doomed. If Europe were to rely on her alone, it would have fallen by now, she muses, biting the insides of her cheeks.

As she sits here, touching thighs with some Kraut she has let crawl into her life, she realizes she has drilled it so effectively into her head that getting close to Katja was a priority that it truly rings as important as dismantling, say, the Abwehr or taking apart the Gestapo itself would be, perhaps more so. That Delphine Beraud is absolutely essential to her role in this battle is only because Katja Baumgartner has become absolutely essential to _her_.

Lie as she will, to whomever she will, the truth is, and the words slip out,

“I can't stop thinking about that kiss.”

Katja turns to her, though they are little else but blurry silhouettes in the absence of light.

“I... I invaded your space without permission that night, I was precipitated and brash. I'm sorry –”

“It's not that, Katja, I...”

Her mouth goes dry. Her conscience whistles inside like boiling water. She leans forward, reaches out to Katja's cheek. Justifications collide and shatter in her mind but the second their lips touch again, as they have been yearning to do for what seems like an eternity, those complaints and those self-inflicted admonishments are brushed away with the force of peace.

When Katja kisses back, it's her body that begins screaming, begging – for more.

The women kiss deeper, embrace, run shy but deft fingers through one another's hair, let themselves plop down on the mattress. Breathless and slightly trembling, they part, share a timid laugh, hands still on hips, shoulders, caressing cheeks, necks.

If Aurora were still attempting to rationalize what she feels and does, she would blame that unprompted confession, that kiss, and everything that will follow on all the wine she had taken back at the cabaret, despite knowing that most of its effects had disappeared by now after all the physical activity involved in evading the patrolman.

“I've already told you I haven't been with a woman before,” she says lowly, as if apologizing, immediately ashamed of how silly she sounds – but giddy to be able to share something with Katja in unbridled honesty. “But I think I want to. _I want to_.”

Katja gives her an adoring peck on the lips, runs a loving thumb over her cheek. Her smile might be enshrouded in the night, but it's audible enough in her voice.

“We can take it slow, no need to rush. We don't want to scare you.”

Darkness is comfortable now. Details cannot be made out, though the eyes have grown accustomed enough to make sense of some hidden shapes. Aurora can see Katja's smile. She mirrors it, awash with warmth, at the point of swearing she could see colours emanate from Katja the same way Alfred did with everything. A fountain of happiness is born right here, made of them both, and its waters the flavour of devotion are endless.

They hold one another close, whisper secrets with their fingers, light as feathers, paint pasts, presents and future with words and kisses; intimate, as if their spirits had known and loved one another for eons and only now were permitted to materialize their limitless, eternal sentiment.

Sleep comes in each other's arms after some two or three hours of oath-taking and worship to previously secret skin, slow, as Katja had said, but powerful. Layers of clothing lay discarded and unnecessary, hot, quivering skin served as the most welcoming of sheets and blankets. Even Katja's trustworthy scarf had been removed, for once, with her blessing, confident that darkness and passion would protect her.

But in the isolated event of a car passing by the streets, headlights on, as Katja snoozes cozily upon Aurora's breast, Aurora herself is awake. Mentally flogging herself for allowing the dirt of her perjury to sink its talons into the brightest, purest of truths, she holds back tears as logic at last regains command and tells her in capital letters that she might be in love with Katja Baumgartner, but Katja is in love with her face and her language, but she isn't in love with her character, her history, her very name, her very self; Katja is in love with Delphine, not Aurora. This torture of her own making is interrupted by the car as its lights take the room for a moment; in that flash, Aurora's eyes capture a vision of Katja's skin like a photograph – her lover's neck, where usually covered by that scarf of hers, is all tinted in blacks and blues, a pale purple right above her clavicle, dead yellow at the borders, the shape of male human hands.

Heart constricted, Aurora holds Katja tighter without waking her. Regardless of her name, regardless of Katja's, she makes a promise in the dead of night. To herself, to the woman nestled in her arms, Aurora swears that she will do whatever she can to erase those horrible splotches of violence from the silk of her skin.

In her dreams, and only in her dreams, all those monsters – imaginary and real – vanish.

 

-

 

Bare skin slides over her own until Katja settles in a position in bed beside her, slipping an arm around her waist, awarding Aurora with a long, lazy, but passionate wet kiss.

“I wish we could have this every day of our lives,” she says, voice husky, words poured out of liquid yearning.

“Every day, every night,” Aurora replies with kisses of her own for each unit of time mentioned, “every hour, every second.”

“Without your having to rush out to tend to your team, hunting down Germans and traitors–”

“Or your having to go back to your... Husband,” Aurora pushes the word out, dismal.

They share a dejected sigh, cling to one another with a fiercer, needy grip, cementing the full extent of their naked bodies together as much as physically possible.

“I wonder what would have happened, had we met before the war or if we had met and there been no war at all,” Katja says while running a lazy finger over Aurora's shoulder, drawing abstract patterns.

“Who knows? Maybe you could have visited Paris in another life and we would've crossed paths inside the Louvre.”

“Or you would've come to Berlin, caught my eye in the middle of Potsdam Platz, maybe, or while admiring the Brandenburg gate. Tourists like that,” she says with a smile.

“You would've known my friends,” Aurora remarks, eyes lost in the ceiling above, her voice gradually lower, sinking into dreams as René, Danielle and all the other people she has loved and lost assault her mind; unconsciously, she pulls Katja ever closer, as if there is any space left between them to bridge, as if telling the world no one would take this one woman away from her, she wouldn't let it happen.

“And you, mine,” Katja lets herself be held, clings back, also torn between the now and the then, between who she has and who she's had – the war led her to Aurora, but the war could, as it had done with everyone she loved as well, take her away at any given moment and in the harshest of ways, given Aurora's current line of work.

“I would've liked that, Katja.”

Katja smiles.

“I would've liked Paris with you too, Aurora.”

The Canadian returns the smile. Katja did that now, slip her name in conversation whenever she could, her real name, after all the time they had gone through with Aurora being “Delphine Beraud”. Hearing her say _Aurora_ in that German accent of hers comforts her the way a loving caress to her skin – as Katja is also prone to offer in abundance, much to their shared delight – does. The acridity in her mouth, the lump on her throat, the filth entrenched in her pores for having made love to this woman while embodying a lie have all vanished. She can be herself at last and indeed it is only with Katja that she feels most at peace, most free to be who she truly is without the need to put up a tougher façade as when she leads the boys in the field or a vulnerable, enticing one as when she creates characters for herself like an expert actress in order to gain an adversary's confidence, seduce them into compliance even if they ignore it. In Katja's presence, Aurora is neither queen or pawn, not even player; she is simply alive: a beating human heart full to the brim with feeling, an honest and honed conscience, a shining, vivacious soul in a warm, breathing, healthy body, not oppressed and not oppressing.

“I would've liked anywhere in the world with you.”

Another embrace, a languid kiss. Nowhere else has there been so much serenity in the face of fear, hatred and injustice. In such harrowing, vicious times, nowhere else has seen such love flourish.

“What is Canada like, Aurora?”

“Big. Cold.”

They laugh heartily.

“Well, with a description like that it seems as if I'll have to go see your home country myself to find out!”

“No city in Canada is anywhere near Paris or Berlin, Katja.”

“That much I can imagine, it's a young country, but I don't care. I'd love to see where you grew up. Besides, maybe it would do us good to be outside Europe for some time.”

Aurora props herself up on one elbow, shifts her weight though maintaining their proximity.

“Would you like that? Really? We could go after... All of this, if you mean it.”

Katja places a loving hand on Aurora's cheek, pulls her closer for yet another kiss.

“I can't go back into the past to show you my Berlin. But I'd love to go anywhere in Canada or the planet with you in the future. We would leave now, if I had a say in it,” she says, meaning every word, imprinting affection into every syllable.

Aurora sighs, her own hand also finding a home in Katja, fingers caressing her scalp, messing her hair.

“If I could choose, we would. Leave now, leave all this savagery and secrets and blood behind us.”

“I know.”

“But I can't.”

“Aurora.” Katja takes her hand, kisses her knuckles. “I know. I'm not asking you to run away with me. You have so much to do. We do.” She spares a second to look at the large envelope she brought Aurora, containing notes on whatever she was able to gather regarding Oberführer Baumgartner's received intelligence of the Germans' next moves. “It wouldn't be fair, mein Liebling.”

The term of endearment is enough to dissipate the shadow in Aurora's features, banning the hypothetical scenarios that the idea of abandoning her communal burden in order to seek individual solace had given birth to in her chest. She doesn't reply, or not with dialogue, instead pulling Katja into her, turning their conversation physical, spiritual. As they resume their rituals of mutual adoration with passionate kisses, either long or quick in random trails over their skin, or with squeezes, small, harmless bites and eager fingers, diving deep into the wonder of one another's essence, Aurora is able to tranquilize the desperate voice inside of her head telling her that she should take Katja and run away, damned be the consequences, if she wants to truly guarantee she will not be another one of her loved and lost.

She is able to control that voice, lower it, but she cannot stifle it.

 

-

 

The plane began to lose its altitude, ready to land.

She looked out the window, eyes watery but blank at the sight of familiar land and fauna. She was familiar to herself, too, the same as when she left: same eyes, same hands, same face, same name...

She was nobody she knew.

Even the pilot must have heard the nervous thumping of her restless heart from where he sat. There was a strange sort of bitter anticipation in her, coming back after all she had done and seen – touched what was prohibited, loved amid so much wretchedness someone whose very name, in the way it was pronounced, carried in it a bond to all that misery they were supposed to fight against. Because no one can see (though she could, that once), in times of darkness, that there are more colours to life than black and white.

Turmoil ravaged her insides. She didn't know what she was doing anymore, why or how she had taken the flight. Everything she had dared to have had been left behind, had been sadistically taken from her, so when she sets foot upon the soil that bore her, it will mean nothing. Perhaps it'll give others some slimy projectiles made of shame to hurl against her at will throughout her entire life.

As the plane hit the ground, a squeeze on her lifeless hand snapped her out of her trance. Aurora abandoned the view of Canadian sights and turned woefully in, only to be met with a tired and powerless, somehow forced and still honest pitiful smile.

 

-

 

Alfred and Aurora are about to leave the team's current hideout when a bout of frantic knocking shakes the door to its hinges. Just as the two position themselves, gun in hand, to open up to their unknown eager visitor, the person on the other side makes themselves known.

“It's me,” a female voice sprinkled with Germanic phonemes announces simply, without bothering to state her name when there is so much at stake, still knocking like a madwoman. “You have to open the door now, they're all in danger! Please tell me there's someone in there!”

She's pulled inside by Aurora as soon as the door swings open, caught by the sleeve of her brown but elegant coat. The spy makes sure the hallway is empty before closing them in again, hoping the other apartments in the building are as unoccupied as they seem. The lock is turned twice, pushed to its limit by Alfred as Aurora puts her hands on Katja's shoulder, gives her full attention.

She battles with the affection she feels for Katja and the fear her sudden appearance and ominous prediction have brought; she must swallow the impulse to question her as a criminal – for a moment, this woman panting in front of her, sweating, expensive clothes and pretty hair in disarray, just as scared as she is or more, is a traitor, a German informant who sold her out, someone who led the entire team to defeat and who should never have been trusted, especially by its leader. For this moment, this stinging, putrid moment, Aurora really does consider the possibility of it all having been an elaborate lie, greater than the ones she had initially crafted, a malicious carnivore worm who fed on her all too intense feelings, a backstabber who –

But the moment is nothing _but_ , a mere blink of the eye, a perverted delusion instilled in her by extreme external conditions, by having grown used to secret codes and second intentions, creeping in the shadows while fearing her own. The idea of Katja having somehow betrayed her is preposterous, _blasphemous_ , as she stands there, tiny and frail but with her chin still up in defiance against the usurpers of Germany only to warn Aurora, to _save her_.

“They're in danger,” Katja repeats wide-eyed, voice failing. “You need to get them out of that building!”

Alfred opens his mouth to enquire further on what peril threatens his colleagues, but Aurora is quicker and sets another priority.

“Katja, were you followed?”

“I don't know, I don't think so, but it's possible, you know them. I took shortcuts, got a lift, but nobody and nothing is safe. Aurora, they have a document of yours with your picture in it –!”

A shiver runs down Aurora's spine as she recalls the incident in Villemarie. Too late now.

“How many guards are –” Alfred tries again, only to be cut off by his sergeant. Whatever colours he has seen in her have changed drastically, or so Aurora supposes when she sees him, considerably disgruntled, out of the corner oh her eyes.

“That picture doesn't matter anymore, but did anyone see you leave?”

Katja frowns and torment draws itself upon the features of her beautiful face.

“I ran out as soon as Emil showed me the document and told me. I suspect he wanted the satisfaction of seeing me come after you instead of staying by his side as he hunted you down. Now he'll hunt me too, of course, but I couldn't, you see, I couldn't stay there and wait to get out later, I had to come now, I couldn't risk you. Now he knows, he must know about us, and I'm sorry, Aurora, I am so sorry –”

“You did well,” Aurora comforts her despite the storm in her bosom, pulling her in for a hug, giving her a kiss on the forehead and ignoring Alfred's being there and seeing it all. “You did well, you were so brave. But we have to go now if what you're saying is true.”

“Did your husband mention the number of men involved in the operation?” Alfred says at last, oblivious (or perhaps much too acutely aware) of the impact of the word _husband_ on both women.

“Carlingue men, policemen, German soldiers, there should be variety from what he said, though the Germans want to take credit for capturing you, if anyone comes out alive.”

The two spies have enough. They round up whatever equipment they can out of the few belongings they have available: two more guns than what they usually carry individually, bullets – false identities and Ausweis papers stay behind now that they're beyond the point of diplomacy. There is precious little to take to battle or to salvage from destruction and soon the trio is storming out of the apartment. Aurora gives Alfred orders to go first, she'll meet with him; he should warn the others if there were still time for it or stay put until she arrived so they could improvise a strategy from there. He hesitates in leaving her and in going alone, even if for some minutes, but doesn't question her judgement (not verbally, in any case), only shooting Katja some uncanny, untranslatable glance before leaving.

“You need to go as well, Katja.”

The German woman nods calmly, though her irises are drenched in utter bereavement.

“He's coming after me, I know.”

“You need to go _now_. There's one more place we have and since we haven't used it yet, there's no chance it's been compromised. You'll have to make your way there, it's a bit far-off, and then give a password as there's a man tending to the property.”

“ _Emil is going to kill me_.”

“Katja, listen to me, _please_. You've held on so long, do it a little more.” Panic has already crafted a hole in Aurora's breast, however. Her eyes race from one direction to another, the palm of her gun-wielding hand sweating against the grip.

Those red and watery eyes focus on her at last. Aurora gives her instructions, makes her repeat the code three times to make sure she memorizes it, gives her information she can use in case the man doubts her affiliation to sergeant Luft's group because of her accent, a trait that could not be helped as much as Katja tried. So Aurora gives her bits of trivia, something to assure the resistant man she was sent there on allied order, not in the service of her country of origin.

“Now go.” Aurora kisses her on the lips like lightning. “I'll come to you when this is done, wait for me.”

“I love you.”

Wordless, Aurora can only nod in response as she dashes away in Alfred's trail. She looks behind a first time to find a paralysed Katja staring back at her and she feels as if a poisonous needle were inserting itself in her throat, in her veins; a second glance, farther on, reveals nobody where Katja had stood. Nobody, except perhaps the phantom of a steel will biting at her heels, military boots stomping their way after her. They know her face now, after all.

She runs.

If that awful suspicion she had as soon as Katja arrived were to be true, she has just supplied the enemy with extensive knowledge of her group's last resource, signing their death sentence with her own writing even if they managed to escape the trap at rue Lauriston, of all places.

But that last declaration of love rings loud and clear inside her head. Whichever the result of her actions, Aurora Luft realizes that whatever it may mean of her, she has no regrets.

Shedding guilt, she lets her feet guide her to her destiny and prays (she hasn't done so in a while, but she tries) Katja will also survive to be a part of it.

 

-

 

Aurora finds a discarded rag in the seemingly empty apartment to serve as a cover and rushes over to the woman just arrived, who stands shivering and claims the floor with puddles of rain water. Splatters of mud adorn her knees and shoes while her silky, curly brown hair has turned black and flat upon her head, just as her scarf has turned a dead river of soppy, dried blood hanging from her neck.

“We should get you out of those clothes,” Aurora says concomitantly with the deafening crack of thunder outside, “you'll get ill if we don't.”

She steps back after attempting to dry Katja's hair off with that rough piece of fabric, giving Katja the space she needs to strip down. The German coughs once or twice as she timidly begins to remove her soiled garments.

“We have warm water, I washed myself just now. I'll get you a bath running.” Aurora remarks, turning her back, granting Katja privacy.

It's not as if Aurora hasn't seen Katja naked before (or vice-versa). Granted, up until this point, whilst she was still “Delphine Beraud”, they had had but one encounter as intimate as that – and in this very place, too – but it had all transpired in darkness, in another life. Aurora had herself been wrapped in mystery and so, at the time, had Katja's body been revealed to her; although they are currently illuminated by the light of a single candle Aurora has found in waiting, something in the sergeant convinces her to look away. Katja had shared a sacred part of herself with Madame Beraud, not with Sergeant Luft. She has no right to claim it to herself, not like this.

The bathroom is small, there's enough space to fit one bathtub in comfortably and little else. It's old and ill-maintained, porcelain cracked and faucets rusty, but the water is good enough for tense, aching muscles to relax in.

Water falling and filling the tub (rather than crashing over her head) creates a sound that attracts Katja. She, too, seems self-conscious of her nudity now that she has left her clothes neatly on top of that lonely chair in the other room, next to the window. She glides to the bathroom door, a shy flower blown nearer by a gentle wind, leaning against the door frame to further cover her body as if the coat she has snatched from wherever Aurora had left it didn't do it enough.

Aurora sees her, says nothing of her coat, glad, even, that Katja isn't freezing and exposed about while she waits. Only her pale legs from the thighs down can be seen, her feet stuck together, toes curling in and out with impatience or anxiety, Aurora can't tell. She shoots her a little grin and avoids eye contact when she makes her exit. Katja grabs at her arm before she leaves, just as a child might: touch light and innocent, but in earnest pleading, hiding an incredible vital energy behind those wonderful, expressive eyes of hers in spite of the prevailing shyness.

“Obinger,” she says sweetly, making sure Aurora _does_ meet her gaze.

Flames lick at Aurora's cheeks from the inside as the circumstances of the entire situation dawn upon her in full force. One second Katja is holding a gun at her and they're driving a car stolen from her high-ranked German officer husband while she rebukes suspicions; the next , that same woman who all but kidnapped her is standing naked inside of her own coat holding her in place, if not pulling her close, in earnest fondness. Aurora was supposed to watch her, infiltrate her life, use her to aid in the saving of Europe and the world – instead, she's absolutely hypnotized by Katja, too much to even understand the revelation she has just given.

“What?” Aurora blinks.

“My name.” Katja leans into her, putting her mouth to Aurora's ear. “My true name, before marriage. Katja Obinger.”

“Katja Obinger,” Aurora repeats in amazement, the sound of that full name drawing an unconscious smile on her face, her palate suddenly addicted to a marvellous new flavour.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Aurora Luft.”

Giggles get caught in both their throats. Being light-hearted after what they've both lived, after facing their own brands of violence and inflicting it upon one another in their own ways, being light-hearted does them good. Such a state of mind isn't, obviously, the easiest thing for either of them to do.

They trade positions in an awkward silence, gaze unstable – Katja enters the bathroom as Aurora exits, both searching for permissions they have forgotten how to voice. The scent of begging fills the air between them, overpowering that of cold rain or sweat on female skin as both their bodies exude; an invitation is made, only with the eyes, eyes which do not know how to stay still anymore even when given the opportunity to adore their highest divinity. So being, the invitation cannot be accepted; a stomping louder than any Wehrmacht parade beats within Aurora's chest and _still_ she turns the other way. So, too, does Katja look elsewhere as the piece of clothing she borrowed from Aurora slips from her shoulders and she enters her bath.

Aurora can hear her from the bed, where she takes a seat. For some reason, there is no door separating the two rooms and Aurora wonders if it had been previously like that or not – when she was Delphine, in what seemed a lifetime ago; or when she still naively dreamed of adding Villiers to her own name.

That particular dream had ended in this very same place. She recalled how René had been forceful – hands a bit too rough, lips too hungry, though not enough to harm her nor to destroy her trust in him, but sufficiently. Sufficient for what?

Perhaps for her to allow someone else to occupy the space he had once claimed in her affections. And maybe that was just the difference, for even when Katja and herself bedded one another in strange sheets sewn with lies, neither had tried to take anything from the other despite any secondary intentions Aurora herself might have had. Giving was the only activity they had been involved in, giving freely and receiving only that which was so kindly, so passionately given.

But those were Delphine Beraud and Katja Baumgartner. Today, the women sharing that little Parisian apartment meant for resistant organization were Aurora Luft and Katja Obinger.

Lovers in the face of adversity, resisting united against the cruelty of the outward world.

Masks have fallen, stripped off from the skin they had been attached to for too long, and from their shadows spring forth two new women who know not one another or themselves. Rebuilding isn't just necessary, it's essential – perhaps it is not a question of _re_ building but _building_ in itself, laying down foundations in virgin soil now that it is prepared to host whatever they decide to make of it, of themselves. Of course it's an absurd thought and Aurora reprimands herself for being so extreme, so silly, but this is a moment that certainly feels important, it's of utmost importance to her. There are men who depend on her leadership and here she is, having placed her entire self, whoever that turns out to fully be, in the hands of a sole woman. Danielle Fournier had never got Aurora Luft, maybe because Aurora was not yet willing, and neither had René Villiers, a man she had loved but perhaps not enough and not in the way he had wanted her to; Alfred Graves could see her in ways no one else in the world could. But with Katja, it was Aurora who had begun to see things differently; Katja Obinger has infused in her the life others had bit by bit stolen.

Katja Obinger sheds light into the never-ending night – brings true meaning to Aurora's very name, gives her the fuel to shine as she was always meant to shine.

“You're awfully quiet.”

The same woman so completely dominating her mind creeps out from evening darkness and into Aurora's view, rolled up in that coarse and mysterious fabric she had been given in the place of a towel, neck exposed, bringing in one hand Aurora's coat back to its owner. Her hair is damp, her face clean, not a drop of makeup upon it; and yet, more beautiful she has never been in her companion's eyes.

“Just thinking,” Aurora responds and scoots over so Katja can sit with her. They unknowingly mimic the same positions they took the first time they were here together.

“Well, with the Gestapo hot after you, I wouldn't do any different. To be entirely honest, from what I understand, they only have some vague suspicion of who you are and what you do. Whatever it is you've been doing apart from kissing married German women and setting off bombs,” Katja replies with a little laugh.

It's enough to grab Aurora's attention and her eyes are directly drawn for the first time since they met again to where Katja had gotten hurt in the explosion. Now there are only tiny scabs to serve as silent witnesses (though she thought these things took much longer to heal entirely? Then again, she isn't a doctor) and Aurora can't help but raise a hand to that once ruined cheek. This time, her touch is welcomed rather than brutally rejected as in the night at the hospital grounds.

“I didn't know,” she apologizes, forcing herself to look into Katja's eyes and resist the urge to look anywhere else in shame and guilt; though her skin is nearly perfect again, Aurora's fingers can somehow still feel the wounded flesh she had caused. “I didn't know better.”

“In a way, neither of us did, did we?” Her voice is mellow, not bitter. “ _Fraulein Luft_.”

A crooked smile makes its way to Aurora's lips.

“ _Mademoiselle Obinger_ ,” she teases back.

They laugh. Just like that, they're the best of friends, the most attentive of lovers. Their proximity and their bodies are no longer a source of anxiety or awkwardness, but natural elements in their relationship. They are no longer estranged, nothing is alien anymore, and even with the dreadful German secret police just sniffling her trail like rabid shepherd hounds, Aurora is in heaven.

The illusion is severed, however, when her eyes land on Katja's drying scarf, set upon the chair next to the window, not far off, and her memory is battered with the image of Katja's skin stained with male evils. She's comforted by noticing the bruises have all but vanished, though the concern remains.

“Won't you be missed?”

“Not tonight.” Katja sighs. “Emil will be out trying to pay his way into a woman he can't desire or he'll be briefly digging up the part of him he's buried with the first man who will take him or keep quiet about it.”

Katja speaks of it naturally, as if her husband's actions were the most common in the world. There is a drop of melancholy in her tone mixed in with her resignation, though it is clear she mourns for the friend she once had in Emil than for the husband she has never wanted. A dash of sympathy for whatever partner he “chooses” this night is also lurking behind her summary of Baumgartner's distractions.

Her focus falls from Aurora's eyes to the floor just as a corner of her wrap slips a tad and reveals a shoulder. Aurora admires that image, less like a photograph and more like a painting, perhaps as the ones Katja herself had showed her at the dinner; a striking woman sculpted by a play of light and shadow, joy and grief. Unlike someone contemplating one of those paintings, though, Aurora is privy to the real human being portrayed, to the real woman made of flesh and blood caught in the conflict. An artwork should not be touched. An entire galaxy cannot be touched.

Aurora ventures anyway, placing one hand on top of Katja's.

“ _Je t'aime_ ,” she confesses under her breath. The violent rain outside is muted completely.

Katja's heavy eyes meet hers again. She leans into Aurora ever so slightly, calmly, letting the weight in her soul evaporate with every won millimetre between them.

“ _Und ich..._ ” She purrs, her secrets taking the form of a shy but sincere smile. “ _Ich liebe dich, Aurora_.”

With the tip of her nose, Katja gives Aurora's cheek a little nudge and rests her face against her lover's. Aurora reaches up, cradles Katja's face tenderly, turns her by the chin so they are directly in front of one another, foreheads touching. She pulls Katja in and they kiss.

Furious raindrops outside stop mid-air, hair stands on end. A portion of Katja's cover moves even more, offering a delicate breast to the yellow candlelight. Their lips move slowly, savouring each spot, exploring both known and new locations, with known and new methods, softening the terrain before the kiss burns stronger. Hands take tentative liberties, draw adventurous paths in fresh skin, pull, entwine, squeeze, making their way over and under fabric, exposing, adoring. But slowly, _slowly_ : lazy, long kisses to the mouth, a promise in slow-motion at the base of the neck, star-gazing at skin, counting freckles, counting spots with more and more dedicated kisses. Buttons get undone, clothing spills and novel territory is uncovered, yielding transcendent, luscious sugars and spices in friction to the touch, to the tongue.

Wind – if from the outside weather or from the storm raging within, nobody knows – swallows the fire dancing on the candle and they fall into darkness as much as into one another, drowning wilfully, gloriously in one another. The flames cracking beneath their lungs, between their legs, in the palms of their hands light up their very spirits, now joined as one, never to be extinguished.

Tonight, when they finally fall asleep, when the roar of their hearts at last ceases to overpower the cries of thunder, tonight they sleep wrapped in truth, sheets soaked in love, limbs purified of all else but their – legitimate – names.

 

-

 

They needn't open their mouths, needn't give words to the thoughts in their minds running clear as a river all behind their irises. Aurora knows what they're thinking, knows it intimately, for what Alfred, Tom, Harry and Neil don't really know is that she herself has thought all of that and worse long before it occurred to any of them. They mistake her for someone who hasn't already judged herself severely enough or at all when she has, in reality, done little else than measure herself against other people's morals, principals and ideals for her entire life; we're never clever enough, pretty enough, brave enough, never what our parents want, our peers think and our subordinates idealize of us, and yet we try. Only to fail.

Of course Neil has sore knuckles and Harry has had his glasses broken along with his nose and Tom has endured a gun shot and Alfred was nearly taken amidst the commotion, while Aurora herself will have the new scar of a bullet graze to add to her recently begun collection of regrets, so she understands where they're all coming from. It doesn't mean she wants to hear any of it. She didn't want, nor did she need to disclose to them the ongoings of her personal life (even if she had told herself again and again in the beginning that it _was_ work), now that she seemed to have one again. To suppose there was shame involved in some great degree was to state the obvious, clearly she couldn't just strut around the streets – of _Paris_ no less – with her lover, could she? In other times, perhaps. What took the boys off-guard wasn't as much Aurora's affair being of the same sex (though of course that had its own shock value), however, but rather the fact that she was _German_.

Alfred gapes in the most absolute of silences out of them all and perhaps that in itself is what bothers her the most. It's not just that he seems to have known and accepts or rejects the whole thing (she doesn't need his opinion anyway, they're colleagues, friends even, and have been so for what? Two, five months? She's not stupid, she's noticed how he is when she is around him. This doesn't concern him), it's that he takes no sides. It neither irks him or cheers him up. There's only indifference.

So yes, she's bitter, she's bitter that maybe he has decided to discard that friendship they had built up, that special connection they had found, and she's bitter regardless of how annoyed and humiliated she feels at the moment. It's a pity, it's unfair. That they should all see Katja once in their lives and automatically consider her to be this or that based on the way she speaks, on the spelling of her name – and this despite the valuable information she had given them, the life-saving secrets she had stolen from her husband under great risk only to help _them,_ to enable – and with success – them to help others. Doesn't that count?

And they're all alive. Hurt and exhausted and compromised in every way, doubtlessly destined to return straight to Ontario for a scolding and complete reassignment if not discharge, but _they_ _are_ _alive_. Katja has given away her only safety to make sure they would have a chance – Katja saved them, Aurora makes a point of telling them with her eyes. However close to them the Gestapo might be, they will find a way to leave France in safety end enjoy those lives of theirs, while Katja Baumgartner – _Obinger_ – is a sitting target.

So yes, it _is_ her responsibility, Katja is Aurora's responsibility. No, it isn't blindly walking into crossfire for misguided puppy love, no, Harry, the trap couldn't have been set by her; and no, Neil, she can't think of the mission, there is no more mission, nor can she settle for passivity and hope, Tom; and most of all, Alfred, _no_ , she does not love you back enough, not the way you want her to, to forget this and come with you. If it has all been blown to smithereens, and it has, then she has no other obligation than to return to Canada. It needn't be with them, it needn't be now, though it likewise needn't be alone. _Right now,_ and Aurora never thought she would see herself in such a situation, sturdy, do-good, top of her class, responsible Aurora, she has her own, personal mission to undertake.

And she will not be stopped.

She doesn't look back when she leaves them, knows not what decisions they will take now that sergeant Luft is out. She tells herself she doesn't care (though yes, she does, _deeply_ ) only in hopes of not wasting any more time in finding Katja. She can't run, can't take any form of transport with the Germans and French cooperators tracking her (she and the boys have escaped rue Lauriston, but the gang famous for being installed in that same street was after them in full force too, now, as if they needed more men hunting them down). So she slips in and out of sight, creeps, crawls, slips, slides, glides her way to the hideout she told Katja to go to.

On her way, Aurora goes by the other safe-house, the one in which they had formed so many of their joint memories together, and she sees uniformed men ransacking the place, tearing it apart, pleasure splattered all over their faces. There isn't much for them to grasp at, neither woman had left anything behind in that apartment, but of course men will bring the whole building down even if just for the sake of it.

Nobody sees her as she slithers past the scene without letting it affect her. She has kept a gun with her and she resists the temptation quite well to use it on those men polluting what she and Katja had made beautiful since; after all, the times spent in there are not being destroyed, just their environs. She carries those memories in her heart wherever she goes, even if the place that housed them no longer exists. Revenge over that is meaningless, revenge is not for now.

Now she is a spectre and must be as immaterial as one if she wants to succeed. They can do whatever they like to the place as long as Katja is in her arms.

Paris is a minefield, there is bait at every corner. She loses time in taking necessary detours around guards, policemen, open spaces – every step gained is a minute lost in the race for both her life and Katja's, she can't help but fear.

Aurora doesn't know what course of action they will take once they are rejoined, she doesn't know what they could possibly do to ensure their safety, especially now that she's working alone, no backups, no contacts, no one to go to. There is the option of running and the option of hiding and neither is guaranteed – nothing is guaranteed in times of war, but her mind can't handle the burden of seeing things in general scale when there is already so much terror in the small picture already.

They could find some hole to bury themselves in for an unpredictable amount of time, feed on crumbs and rats; could seek refuge in the countryside, pretend like the Vichy regime can offer them any chances, or pray that the mountains and valleys of rural France can enshroud two runaways, two rejects whose documents and faces are well known to the so-called authorities; maybe they could, hell, maybe they could get a car and drive to the Spanish border and from there, well, who knows? Her Canadian superiors won't send a plane to fetch her and her new friend just because she wants to be rescued, her team will have gone by the time she manages to inform Camp X of where she is and in what conditions. So she doesn't have a plan. She has tactical training under her belt and a sharp mind to use that training to its fullest, but Aurora Luft has no ground to tread upon, even if she is hitting her heels against concrete (maybe that's precisely the issue). Trapped in a labyrinth, no exit visible. One goal at a time it must be, how she must think: first traipse these corridors, avert dead-ends, turn in dozens of corners until she finds herself at the core of the maze. From there, with Katja, they will scramble for a way out together, fending off countless minotaurs as they go. The question turns to _how_ they would go about that – but that is still two steps ahead when many more separate Aurora from her destination.

At long last she finds the place. It's arguably the worst kept of all the houses she's been in during her time as an agent, but it's a roof, it will do.

Aurora approaches, side-glances with every heartbeat, afraid she might have been followed. She goes to the door, knocks in the agreed manner of identification, hoping Katja has followed the exact same procedure just a few hours before.

Contrary to her expectations, no one answers.

She tries again, panic lodged in between the bones of her wrist.

Nothing.

An ear glued to the door, Aurora listens for inner activity. Silence. The door is locked, the tall windows cannot be climbed without arising suspicion in possible neighbours, innocent or malicious as they may be. Everything is still as the day fades into twilight and hope into desolation. Aurora is locked out and alone, hunted; Katja whereabouts unknown.

Her hand itches for that gun tucked in her coat. She knows just the head she'd love to use as shooting practice if anything has happened to Katja. Aurora Luft will not be taken down or in without blowing Emil Baumgartner's skull open first.

She fidgets at the door, worried that the time spent here will attract attention, that she is in the open, an easy target; her mind rushes in a million directions trying to figure out what to do now, whether she should give it a few more minutes for Katja to arrive (though she should have done so an hour ago maximum, no excuses) or if she should run after her (with no clues to where she might be, based only on instinct and despair). The anger towards the German officer is nothing compared to the fear over Katja Obinger's well-being – she cannot lose her, not after all this, after what they've done, dreamed, planned, become.

After all this, Aurora stands powerless. Impotent. _Stupid_.

They've taken her. Somehow along the way they've taken her. Something inside of Aurora boils at the thought of Katja being grabbed, held down, beaten – whatever it is those monsters do to country-fellows who don't bow down to the ever-mighty swastika, who shares a bed with their enemies, who is nowhere near the female ideal they're touting, attached to a husband with seven blond, “Aryan” babies pulling at the hem of her skirts. If they have uncovered the operation, if they know the names of the entire team, why _wouldn't_ they know of Katja's involvement, why wouldn't they take whatever action they thought necessary against her? What chance had she in a besieged city such as this – and unlike Aurora, devoid of any training whatsoever?

It's a matter of time before they reach her, then, if they have caught Katja. She doesn't want to give up and in to paranoia and flee without confirmation of Katja's fate, but if someone is to survive and attempt to save anyone else, she has to – a car shoots up the street.

It's over, they have come. At this speed, it can only be –

But when the car pulls up in front of her rather than run her down, when it parks precisely at the angle that places her directly in front of the passenger seat's door, it's not a German higher-up or corporal and it isn't a French Nazi thug either that looks at her from the inside and beckons her to come in.

“Aurora,” Katja calls with a brusque head motion so the other woman springs back into life, “come on, hurry!”

Relief strikes, brings colour back to her face, blood back to her brain, oxygen to her limbs. There is no plan yet, but the need, the reason for one has just resurfaced; the world regains colours apart from Nazi flag reds and the universe regains sounds other than multitudes marching, and though not all is well, Katja _is_.

“Where were you?” Aurora asks as she dashes towards the car, concerned rather than angry.

“Your friend didn't like the way I talk and didn't believe me even with what you told me to say. He ran off thinking I would bring more Germans. I figured we couldn't stay here.”

“So you just stole a car? That's beginning to form a habit,” Aurora finds the time to tease as she opens the car door.

“I didn't always dress fine clothes, you know, a girl had to do what she did to survive back in the day,” Katja replies with a grin.

Aurora sits, slams the door.

“What now?” Katja asks, as lost as Aurora was just seconds ago.

She receives a flash kiss of an answer; Aurora might not have a map yet, but she has her compass. Things will work out, there is hope. They are together, they will survive, they will find a way, they will live.

“We need to get out of Paris.”

“What about the team –”

“I'm coming with you, Katja. You don't even have to ask.”

It's unbridled joy, not sadness, that seasons Aurora's speech.

“... They'll be looking for us both.”

“I know. We'll find a way. _Together_.”

Katja beams at her, as if she could cry with delight. There is hope. Side by side, hand in hand, there is hope.

She grasps at the clutch, ready to set it in gear, drive them away to safety, together, to hope.

For _there is_ hope.

But –

 

-

 

Danielle smiles, a kiss on one cheek then the other. René's hand catches her arm, pulls her away. Conversations in German with her father in Toronto, letters sent to her mother in between writing articles from Paris. Holding a gun for the first time, taking a life for the first time, putting herself completely into someone else's hands for the first time.

“Enchantée.”

Champagne bubbling in Katja's glass, popping against the insides of her cranium, hot breath tickling her skin; fire and metal up in the air, dead blue eyes and large fingers on a square muscled hand squeezing the life out of a betrayed friend, blood drops out of a female nose. Fuming breaths, lips upon bruises, sewing together the skin of an open scar under freezing rain, heavenly cleansing. Night time and secrets, lies, love, soiled and hated before the dawn, radiance, words of light, touches truer than any laws, morals, preconceptions.

A day in Paris – running, gazing, donating the contents of her lungs up to the sun; smoking, crying, screaming in bed, punches against the wall, spit on uniforms, like an unruly child scorning authority, escaping school (which she never did), as if kicking and screaming resistance matters. He pulls her underground. Ontario, Paris, male hands and invitations and confessions, she glides through it all, nothing will welcome her; not the oceans who birthed her nor the nightlights that adopted her – and then.

A night in Paris, two, three, games and sacrifices – a truth for two lies, light bulbs and candles, flames on cobblestones, famished loins, burning limbs, flames on everything they can touch when they can touch everything. An injury much worse than what he inflicts, an apology more healing than any medicine to untreatable wounds.

The breeze back home is like her voice, soft music in her ears, tranquil but passionate, as she looks out into the horizon when there are no more bombs or bullets or deaths and there is light, light, birds and waves and bustling life, and when it comes they won't have to scurry in darkness any longer while a new world blossoms right before their eyes as they hold hands over the precipice.

There is hope.

Mistakes were made but she saved people. Lost bits and pieces of an older heart so a new one could have the space to grow, and it did, it does, with courage born of leadership and loyalty out of sightless, mindless, blessed trust, propinquity.

“Katja.”

“Delphine.”

Baumgartner, Beraud.

Falling into the abyss, desiring it, embracing it.

“Aurora.”

“Obinger.”

“Luft.”

Scalding embers that leave no marks nor generate pain, unlike projectiles irradiating heat cutting into flesh, an invasion sans violence, sans leather boots or men at arms; instead, needles met with care that cannot be refused, fingertips immersed in liquid glee, a tongue rid of secrets carrying nothing but love.

“Je t'aime.”

Smiles, laughter, explosions more potent than canon balls, like stars colliding taking place inside their bones, sparkles from toe to stomach to the eyes, flowing from begging lips, adoring lips that capture lips, capture pain with thankfulness, love with kindness. Black clouds are no more and her voice is the colour of home, the scent of the sweetest wine, and she drinks it in sips, though generous, to savour it as fully as she can.

Her soul soars, no longer broken, and Aurora finds happiness in her arms. A kiss in a darkened room. An overflowing heart. An entire future inside Katja Obinger's eyes, and she accepts, she accepts, _she accepts!_

She lives for the first time.

“I love you.”

Two bodies, two spirits, two raw hearts beating in tandem.

“Together.”

 

-

 

Glass shatters, too quickly for a human eye to comprehend. Her mouth is still designed into a kiss when blood splatters fly; a drop lands on the inside of her bottom lip, paints the white of her teeth, dyes the golden of her hair crimson.

Her heart stops, her lungs don't work, grappling with death as if the shot had hit her instead.

The hope, the life, the future, the universe inside her eyes goes dark, a candle flame blown away by the torrid, concrete wind of a suffocating summer night. Wiped away in the blink of an eye, infinite colours replaced with ugly grey.

A hand reaches its destination, but limp, a body falls over the steering wheel, a soft thump, a head hits the panel, leaking red; the face turned to her, eyes wide, eyes empty.

She can't see, she can't breathe. She herself is blind, her chest clogged, her own body heavy as a corpse, unable to move, to shriek, to cry, to run for protection when it's clear the next bullet will be for her. She doesn't know how or when her shaking hands take a deadly hold on the body beside her, feeling the warmth slowly turn to ice beneath her grip. She doesn't remember screaming, though she coughed up blood later on, torn vocal chords.

Aurora barely remembers how she was torn away from Katja, probably kicking, fighting against the powerful male hands that dragged her out and pushed her into another car, speeding away, taken by Neil and Alfred and left without a single memento of Katja's but that horrifying vision in red.

Her memories stop here. When hope turns to ash, melts into blood. The eyes she had loved frozen in the moment of transition – from all to nothing.

Katja is gone.

 

-

 

The clocks on the wall, indicating time around the world, made her nervous.

The constant noise reminded her of counting down the time before an explosion – her mind did it against her will, giving a number to each tick and each tock until it hit one hundred and she recoiled from the blast, loud and present in her head as much as it had been real weeks and weeks ago. Part of her hoped it weren't restricted to an echo reverberating solely between her ears: maybe then the others would stop glancing at her and snickering every time she shivered from the memory, maybe it would mean she had returned to that time and place. Done things differently.

Reports found their way to her hands, moved on to other desks while the words contained in them whirled before her eyes, meaningless. She had to read the same line ten times over if she wanted to make any sense of it.

Aurora wasn't used to desk work, she had not been trained for this business of managing intelligence documents and the like (not that the most urgent and confidential information ever ended up with her again after everyone knew of her involvement with a German): typing, copying, destroying, reporting.

“It's not so bad, you get used to it eventually,” Krystina had told her with an apologetic smile once, the only person who still tried to interact with Aurora after she returned from the catastrophe in Paris. “It's not as exciting as what you did, but at least we're still helping out.”

Aurora had given her a slight nod and an empty stare in response. Nothing had awakened her from her brand of catatonia since she had been put in the plane back to Canada, maybe earlier according to Alfred's account. Sinclair had talked to her, confronted her, argued, demoted her and at last tried to comfort her in some way for over an hour; his door had been locked the whole time, just the two of them inside, but only his voice could be heard by everyone else working on the camp facility. His tone went from one extreme to the other, but Aurora must've answered only in more nods, squeaks of 'yes' or 'no', silence. She barely remembered any of that disciplinary meeting apart from how her hands shook insistently, as if the pressure of Katja's skin under them still faded, as if she hadn't let go of her body yet and it were dematerializing itself from under her fingers at every word of Sinclair's, every mention of her German “friend”.

Most people were surprised to see Aurora still playing a role in any military allied services. Judging from the commotion about her liaison, which had cost the entire operation, caused her team members to be severely exposed in what was perhaps the greatest failure to come out of Camp X, they had expected there to be punishment in the form of dishonourable discharge, maybe even to see her taken to martial court.

The agents under her orders must've influenced her fate, put in a good word, for Aurora had not defended herself against any accusations nor resisted what her superiors had discussed doing to her. The verdict turned out to be that she was still a valuable asset: she had knowledge of the playing field, training, linguistic skills. If nothing else, she could help the new recruits along during their time at camp (being prepared to take the place she and her colleagues had vacated).

Given her mental state and circumstances, she, of course, would not return to Europe, even though she was considered all but harmless now. Lost, eyes wandering along the insides of her thoughts most of the time, but somehow still fully capable of doing the job assigned to her. Typing. Copying. Destroying. Reporting. When the new recruits were in, she tended to them, taught them whichever skills she had to, conveyed as much information as required of her with as little communication as possible and absolutely no personal connection to any of them. When they weren't around, she remained chained to her desk, awash in paperwork, flinching every now and again with the ticking of the clocks, not a red object in sight.

Alfred helped out with the rookies as well. It was likely that he and the others would be sent back soon enough (even if Tom would take some time still to fully recover – he shouldn't have been rushed around in his state, but they had to bring him in and risk it) with a new identity, new hair colours, clothes, accents, all of it. Only Aurora would be left behind, for only Aurora had bedded a German, her lover's sex and her lover's providing of useful information of her own volition notwithstanding; higher-ups didn't trust her judgement in the field anymore. And if she were being honest with herself, sometimes Aurora looked back and didn't either.

A group was coming in. Krystina warned Alfred, who hovered around camp grounds most days, and he proceeded to tell his former sergeant. He didn't know whether she heard him or not. It seemed she hadn't, given how late she showed up in the room Sinclair had summoned them to.

Aurora apologized in a whisper, daring only the quickest of looks at the people she joined. Sinclair himself, Alfred, two other men she didn't know yet, obviously the newbies.

“ _Corporal_ Luft, good of you to join us,” Duncan Sinclair said, mixing annoyance with honest contentment at hearing her speak, even as low as her voice was.

He introduced her to the two men, Americans, one lanky, one brawny, although she didn't really register anything about them, neither faces or names. She paid attention to precious little these days, especially when it came to people – just names, just faces, just bodies. She had loved a name, a face, touched the warmest, most alive and beautiful of all human bodies once, before it became inexorably, murderously cold.

(One last recruit was missing, Sinclair had said, but they could go on regardless, there wouldn't be too much vital information to catch up on when the person arrived.)

Now Aurora only touched other people when there was no way of avoiding it, as when she taught some close-quarters combat techniques to the rookies, mainly the women. Anything else felt wrong. She wouldn't allow for the faintest of grazes, fingers over fingers, when handing a co-worker a file, not without wincing as if burned.

Aurora didn't snap out of her introspection as soon as the door opened, whatever was on her mind (if anything). It took Sinclair stopping himself mid-sentence for her focus to rise from a crack on the floor to the arrival.

And when at last she did look, her knees faltered.

“Our party is complete at last,” said the official, welcoming the recruit in. “These are Alfred Graves and Aurora Luft, your supervisors for today.”

Something congests her throat, air can go neither in or out. She is back in the car: blood, glass breaking, a blast; then hope, all the hope in the world, relief, the only time she is happy, Katja Obinger kisses her mouth, holds her hand, leads her into a new world, presents herself in French; Paris at night, Paris in daylight, Danielle Fournier, a cigarette at the edge of her mouth. Katja in Aurora's arms, Katja freezing and wet, Katja smiling – Danielle sitting carelessly at a table in the Café de Flore, panting, wet, under the rotunda. Katja. Danielle. _Katja. Danielle._

Apart from the thick glasses and the long hair styled into a messy bun, the recruit standing in front of her has their exact same physiognomy.

There are tears forming in Aurora's eyes when she sees in colour, is propelled to live in the present again, finds she must breathe again lest she drowns. Her heart ravages her insides as she sees Danielle, she sees Katja, she's sure – the woman looks directly at her.

“Hi,” the newcomer says nonchalantly, waving her hand in a large, awkward arc in greeting.

Aurora feels as if she's just stepped over a landmine

That voice. There is no accent, but _the voice! Ich liebe dich, Aurora._

“I'm Cosima.”

x


End file.
